Jere answers:

I think you are right.

Jere answers:

$10 p/hr plus mileage and any bonus you choose based on sales.

Jere answers:

Peggy Lou, it does my heart good to read your question! So many entrepreneurs fall in love with the idea of creating a business — with the marketing or the manufacturing. It’s fun to watch stuff roll off the assembly line or to make the packaging as cute as can be. And I’m not saying those elements aren’t important. But going forward without knowing the market thoroughly is business suicide.

The patient, smart entrepreneur takes the time to walk through each step of basic research: analyzing such pieces as potential market size, competitors, location, etc. Through interviews or focus groups (formal or informal). You’ll want to make realistic assessments of how many potential customers might be willing to try your product or service immediately, and how you might expand from the core group. SCORE, the organization of retired entrepreneurs, has pulled together a great two-part series to start the process here: http://www.score.org/new_biz_idea_part1.html.
And Entrepreneur magazine has its version here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/evaluatingyouridea/article70518.html

Hopefully, that kind of research will help you move forward smartly with your idea. But it also may lead you to a different conclusion: Yes, that there actually isn’t a viable business here. While that might be a tough call, it sure is cheaper to learn that in the market research phase than further down the road.

Jere answers:

One of the most targeted places to reach college students is facebook.com. In fact, if are a college alumni and you get a Facebook account, you can typically buy 10,000 ad impressions for $5 – $20:

http://www.facebook.com

I think any normal advertiser can buy 2500 impressions for around $5 without setting up a Facebook account.

Visit the website and go to the advertiser link to see what program would be best for you. I am confident that you can target specific colleges with any of your Facebook advertisements.

I hope this helps!

Sincerely,
James
Internet Marketing Professional
http://www.loyaltylm.com

Jere answers:

Well first make sure that your website has a lot of traffic. There are many 100% free ways to do this, my favorite way is to go here- http://www.hits2u.com/?679278.

And your second question is a bit difficult- how about when they post an add, they get put into a drawing for something?? I mean I guess it depends on how much money you are willing to lose…..

I hope this helped atleast a little bit!
Good luck.

Jere answers:

I don’t think Yahoo will allow its Messenger to be used in such a fashion. Why would they enable someone else to earn a fee while using their free equipment?

Doesn’t make good business sense.

Jere answers:

The self serve paid advertising systems most often recommended for new users are Google Adwords and Facebook paid ads, Google sponsored search ads give you qualified prospects actively seeking solutions (search keywords) you choose, Facebook ads provide detailed demographic targeting, helpful if you know the profiles of your customer base, interrupting someone’s social meanderings on Facebook, ads may just be initial attention getters, useful for sending people to a free Facebook business page. You would need a company page or web site to best benefit from paid ads. Bother of these ad systems have first time user vouchers, You can pay $25 and get $100 matching funds from Google.

Jere answers:

Online business = low risk because not a lot of capital is involved (unless you employ 50 developers). There’s plenty of articles about how to bootstrap a startup. You can try approaching VCs with your seed idea, but expect them to snatch up like 40% of equity or more. You can also use something that most startups do and use the ‘sweat’ equity option, which entitles employees to equity for their labour. I suggest you consider a business plan maybe, as this will help you layout plans and financial/operational strategies. I’m running a bootstrapped startup of my own called SeekVest (seekvest.com) and it’s designed to help entrepreneurs like you to meet investors and raise capital (it’s still a work-in-progress) but pay it a visit if you like and if you need any help just drop me an email through the contact form.

Jere answers:

Visit, http://www.businessbrokeragesecretsrevealed.com/
to get free consultation on Buying and Selling a Business.

Jere answers:

If you want a template or a bespoke website completely built for you, we can offer this at very competitive prices at Aztec Online. Please see link below to see our services and portfolio.

Anything you can specify, we can give you a free no-oblication quote on the project.

Jere answers:

Have you tried asking your local bank? I know Bank of America has online Payroll where you plug in the numbers and they do it for you.

Jere answers:

I’m glad to hear that you’re using Business Plan Pro 2007 but sad to hear that you’re having problems with it calculating your Break Even point. One thing that you might try in Business Plan Pro is to reset the default formulas in the Break Even table so that it is pulling the correct data from your Sales Forecast and Profit and Loss to calculate the break even point. You can reset the default formulas by right clicking in the Break Even table and choosing Formula Reset > Table.

If you’re still having problems with it calculating a negative break even point, you might have an unusual forecast like a partial year for the first year in the plan. In that case, you’ll be better served by doing your own Break Even point. It’s usually calculated by taking the following:

Fixed Cost ÷ (1-(Unit variable Costs/Unit Price))

Where:

• Unit Price – The price that you charge per unit. Take into account sales discounts and special offers. For non-unit based businesses, make the per-unit revenue $1 and enter your costs as a percent of a dollar.

• Unit variable cost – The incremental cost of each unit of sale. If you are using a Units-Based Sales Forecast table (for manufacturing and mixed business types), you can project unit costs from the Sales Forecast table. If you are using the basic Sales Forecast table for retail, service and distribution businesses, use a percentage estimate. For example, a retail store running a 50% margin would have a per-unit cost of .5, and a per-unit revenue of 1.

• Fixed costs – Technically, a break-even analysis defines fixed costs as costs that would continue even if you went broke. Instead, you may want to use your regular running fixed costs, including payroll and normal expenses. This will give you a better insight on financial realities.

This information is available online in the HurdleBook at:
http://www.hurdlebook.com/
Here’s a selection of Break Even articles:
http://tinyurl.com/2bdspk
(sorry, I had to make it a TinyURL, Yahoo Answers didn’t like it)

Lastly, we do have a free “Break Even” calculator available if you want to use it instead. You can find that on our www.Bplans.com site at:
http://www.bplans.com/common/calculators/breakeven.cfm

Jere answers:

The business form that you choose to start your business is very important. It effects many other aspects of your business (like taxes, how your business is operated) and you need expert guidance on this subject.

There are several choices:

– a sole proprietorship
– a partnership
– a limited liability company
– a corporation (including a regular “C” corporation or an S corporation )

It is best to get the advice of a lawyer, and an accountant that is familiar with the type of business that you want to start.

You need to start with a business plan, then you can show the plan to your lawyer and accountant and they will give you advice about how to structure your business.

A part of your business plan will be a time line, and in that time line you will put mile stones like when to do certain paper work that needs to be done.

For example to hire programmers you have to have certain things in place like payroll, the deduction of their taxes, their health insurance, etc. That is why you need to put together a time line and let someone who understands the legal aspects of your plan.

Check out the web sites for you state, city and county under business and you should also be able to find more information.

Check out these links for small business

http://www.toolkit.com/small_business_guide/sbg.aspx?nid=P07_2011

http://www.sba.gov/

http://www.score.org/

Jere answers:

You should only need a PAYE reference if you are at the stage where you employ staff. Until then you will just need to register as Self employed but you cannot do this until you have commenced trading. On the first day of trading go to the HMRC home page. Click on the register as self employed and you can then register online. You probably wont receive your UTR or unique tax ref from your local tax office until several weeks after registration. Once you have been trading around 3 months you will receive your first payment slip to pay your National insurance contributions. It is worth ringing the Self Employed help line before this though just to make sure they have processed your application.
There is also info on the HMRC website about what to do when you have employees, the documents that you need to keep and how to process your payroll etc. Good luck!

Jere answers:

Even if you’re going into writing your own business plan with no prior experience, you’re far better off having a plan in place than not.

Business plans are like resumes, there’s not one specific way they have to be written. What’s important is that you’ve done your homework and covered your bases. Getting outside help, e.g. Assistance writing it from your local SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) chapter can definitely help, but isn’t strictly necessary.

Your plan should cover:
1. The Market
A. Who are your customers? How are they defined (age, income, geographic location, gender, etc.) How many of them are there? What are their current habits/preferences?
B. Who are your competitors? How many of them are there? What are your points of competitive (dis)advantage vs. Each of them? How will you sell against them?

2. Details of the products/services you intend to offer, including how you’ll price them

3. Your marketing strategy: How will you promote your business? Where will you sell your goods/services? Your store? Other retailers? Online? At trade shows? Some combination thereof?

4. Your organizational information: what kind of business are you? Sole proprietorship? LLC? S Corp? Partnership? How are the various functions of the business being handled and by whom? HR? Marketing? Production/service delivery? Etc. How are you handling banking? Payroll? Insurance? Logistics? What assets do you already have? What do you still need?

5. Finance: How are you obtaining the capital necessary to start your business? What are your projected revenue & expenses for the first year or two?

If you’ve got all that, you’ve got a pretty solid business plan, regardless of who wrote it or how it’s specifically formatted.

Jere answers:

When I first got into Internet marketing, I felt the same way that you do. I felt completely overwhelmed until I came across a website by Matt Bacak. He broke down what I should be doing and how to get started with the Internet marketing basics instead of assuming I knew how to find keywords or how to set up a website.

I have now been working from home doing marketing since my son was born about 10 months ago. Like you, I only have time for part-time, around 20 or so hours a week (sometimes less, sometimes more), but I have been able to make at least $1000 a month for the past 4 months just by following the advice I got on www.mattbacak.com.

This month looks like I will actually surpass $1,000 as I got lucky with some great sales a couple of days ago. I have to say, once you learn the basics and find your niche, it is amazing at how successful you can be.

Jere answers:

I think you are right to look at using the internet to make money in your spare time. There is no better way to get into a business for very little money.

I got started online in my spare time about 5 years ago, it took a while but it got easier as I went along. Now, I work at internet marketing full-time and while I am certainly not a millionaire I do not have to work for someone else and my time is my own.

Learning how to get started is the hardest part. Because of this I wrote a book, The Beginner’s Guide to Online Success. It is an honest step-by-step plan to get your first website online with your first product. I guarantee that this book will help you or your money back.
I even offer a 30 minute free online chat with me so you can ask any questions you need to make sure you are successful.

Jere answers:

If you are starting your own Internet Marketing business, you should already know steps you need to take. My advice would be to choose another business….one that you know more about.

Jere answers:

Internet marketing websites are all over the place today. I’d recommend a shared hosting if you are starting out small. Just make sure they have the available bandwidth to handle your internet marketing campaign.
I prefer utilizing blog based with aggregator sites that bring fresh content in every other day.
Then monetize around your niche as well with adsense, amazon, etc etc.

Always good to keep up on all the internet marketing news available to help guide you as well.

Jere answers:

Oh boy, you’re probably going to get a bunch of people who are affiliates selling their stuff here in reply – not objective answers. I just want to give you an objective reply so that you can make a wise decision about all the things you’ll read about here and online.

There are three important facets to selling online:

Traffic generation – that is getting people who might be inclined to buy to your website. Lots of different ways to do that. Article sites. Google ads. Safelists – and on and on.

The site itself – needs to be set up in such a way that it’s navigation friendly, search engine friendly and looks professional for what you’ll be marketing.

The copy – must be written in an emotionally compelling way so that people say, “Wow – I want that!” and feel like they just gotta have it. Pictures alone don’t do it. Fancy bells and whistles don’t either. It’s about the copy. (That’s my expertise more than the technical pieces.)

Oh, and a fourth – the product and pricing must be something that’s quality and that people really want.

I don’t know of one product that provides all that – and I’ve attended a lot of fancy-schmancy Internet Marketing seminars over the years where they sell more of these programs. There are different programs for different facets of internet marketing.

As far as the written copy – I have an awesome ebook that’s getting great results for people that can give you an overview and excellent step-by-step instruction to that part. Check it out at http://www.SalesLetterEbook.com

Hope this is helpful to you.

All the best,

Denise Michaels
Author, “Testosterone-Free Marketing” and
“Secrets to Money-Making Sales Letters”
Visit me online at http://www.MentoringwithDenise.com

Jere answers:

First, make sure that it is uninstalled and non-functional. If there is any doubt, you can look for installation tools at the Symantec website http://www.symantec.com

Restart the computer, then look for Symantec items in the Program Files folders. There is a COMMON FILES section that also has Symantec Shared folder. Try to delete that “Symantec Shared” folder. Of course, look for other Symantec folders in the Program Files section.

You can use REGEDIT and manually edit your registry. I’ve done that. I would use the FIND feature and search for ALL occurrences of “Symantec” and “Norton”. This will take a while, but you will be DONE with them.

If you could not DELETE some of the Symantec things in the Program Files section, you should be able to do so, after ripping these out of the registry. But do so after rebooting.

I too am not a big fan of the whole Symantec Security solution, but I am OK with their plain Anti-virus software. Versions 2002 and 2003 are still supported for updates, as they were when they were NEW. Reinstallation of these program versions are not the hassle of new versions that wind up with a technical call to Symantec.

Be sure to pick a new Anti-virus solution. I would not be happy with any “DO IT ALL” solution. I would pick other Anti-spyware and anti-spam solutions. I do like Ad-aware and SpyBot Search & Destroy. For WIndows XP with SP2, I like the Windows Firewall, but for other systems, I lean toward the free version of Zone Alarm from http://www.zonelabs.com

You see, nobody seems to be the total expert of that many varieties of threats. I really would not trust Windows Vista as a total solution. HEY, Microsoft has been in this business for a long time, and are simply beginners at security. You will know that I am right by mid 2008 when everyone else is still in the business of providing quality solutions.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Jere answers:

Try MX7! With just a little you can make friends, become an empowered individual with a drive for success, and be able to make money at the same time! It’s a legit networking business that is internet based. Visit my site and read more under Opportunity. All you need are friends and a passion to reach your goals. Goodluck!

Http://www.mx7express.com/id/julet23

Jere answers:

If you have (or need to create) a small private network of business computers and you need to allow those computers to have Internet access, then in addition to your Internet service itself, the correct solution is to purchase a firewall with a built-in Network Address Translation (NAT) gateway.

NAT is the standard solution to the problem of providing a gateway between an internal corporate network and the Internet. It’s relied upon by companies small and large which choose not to pay for individual Internet IP addresses for each computer within the business.

Pretty much all modern firewalls have built-in NAT functionality allowing them to double as gateways. Another nice feature which most have is a built-in Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server. DHCP usage is less common in business and is not essential like NAT, but it can be a convenient feature in that it allows your internal network to mostly configure its own network settings.

If you have Internet service and a modern firewall with built-in NAT gateway and DHCP server functionality, then the only additional piece of hardware which you’d need to set up a rudimentary small network is a simple switch to interconnect the various devices including the computers and the firewall.

Firewalls in the SOHO sector include the “Sonicwall SOHO” and the “Checkpoint Safe@Office”. Either one of these firewalls will allow the type of connection sharing you’re describing. One step up from the SOHO sector is the SMB sector with other products. The Cisco PIX line of devices is one of the most common in business.

A quick search suggests that some of these devices can be had for as little as a few hundred dollars. That’s probably the minimum-grade solution you should consider when thinking about putting business data in close proximity to the Internet.

If that kind of spending is out of the question currently, you could use consumer-grade equipment designed to achieve connection sharing in residential settings. Technically these products work the exact same way, at least in respect to the very-limited set of functionalities which I’ve described here. I won’t mention specific products in that market segment, but any consumer electronics salesperson can steer you in the right direction. In the consumer sector, the devices are branded as “routers” but technically that’s a misnomer since the task at hand is to gateway between two networks, not route within one.

One thing to keep in mind is that your Internet Service Provider might be able to provide and support a business-appropriate firewall/gateway device together with its business-class Internet service. If that’s the case, it’s definitely something to consider since it’s nice to have technical support and a failed hardware replacement agreement available for critical infrastructure. It also prevents the Internet Service Provider’s support team from giving you pushback (e.g. “that sounds like a firewall issue, you better check with your firewall support”) during times when you’re in need of help.

You mentioned that you intend to use a low-cost Internet service. Low cost is good, but be sure that whatever service you purchase is recognized as a business-grade service by the provider. You should never try to sneak by with a residential-grade service for a business because residential service is generally provided with something like a 48-hour SLA if any whereas a business circuit generally comes with a 4-hour response guarantee in case of outage.

Jere answers:

The absolute best cost effective solution would be to have it all “digitalised”

I’m sure you know about “skype” and how it works, well it works the other way with “skype-in” which allows phones to call in for a VERY small monthly fee. You could have the other lines around your business as normal skype users on the internet via computer (you can get a skype handset which looks like a normal phone) and should you need to transfer someone onto a different line, you add the specific person to a conference call.

Should you need to put people on hold, you can always “mute”

although this can seem a bit of a “hastle” to set up, this is the difference between spending thousands or spending a mere few dollars.

I hope you can understand my method 🙂

Jere answers:

Try calling round some wholesalers and see what they can do? 90% of the time they’ll be able to advice when their peak time is for getting the products in, if it’s best to buy damaged and repair yourself (this may take time, but can save you a lot of money), and the quantity. Just always consider the delivery charges as these can be costly, and also try eBay unless that’s where your planning to sell.

If I can be any more help just ask, I do run a business that can do research etc, I’ll see what discounts I can put your way.

Hope you find a solution.

Laura

Jere answers:

Costco and/or Sam’s Club

Jere answers:

The price is the most important way,there are many people buy the mobile in discount time in China,if the mobile is much cheaper than the same types,it must be fake,in my opinion Nokia is very good to use,it can use more than 2 years.also in China have a very famous web site store ,it’s name is taobao ,many Chinse people buy anything thought the net,also you can get the very good mobile though the net ,i am the taobao agent ,i can help you!
I am a local chinese buy agent, i can do purchase for foreigners with chinese items to help their small business or daily life use,things could be from taobao.com and other china online shopping sites or china wholesale market or directly from factories.www.taobao.com is the biggest C2C online shopping site in aisa,it is just like another ebay,you can find cheap brand cloths,shoes,bags there,some are the order rest from china OEM factory,and some are 1:1 highly alike replica. If you are interest in this area,can add my msn messager:wxcansen@hotmail.com for further chatting.
Hope it helps!

Jere answers:

The greatest strength of China is its people. The family, the clan, the village, the nation, and Greater China form a chain of community that stretches around the world. From the farm laborer in Sichuan to the businessman in Taiwan to the restaurant owner in New York City, Chinese people are all one.

Chinese people stand together and support each other. When a Chinese person needs a loan for college, they don’t turn to a bank, they turn to relatives and neighbors. When a Chinese person needs a job, they don’t turn to online job sites, they turn to their network of friends and associates to get a job. It’s all one big boisterous family.

Taiwanese businessmen like doing commerce in Mainland China. Their common language, culture, and identity make for productive business relationships. A businessman from Taipei feels right at home in Beijing, Yiwu, and Guangzhou.

Jere answers:

No there isn’t a difference in the writing (between mandarin and cantonese)
but while most of China uses simplified chinese, there’s certain areas that still uses
traditional chinese, including places like hongkong and taiwan.

Now there’s a difference between traditional and simplified chinese (in the characters)
so you might wanna translate your website to both those forms.

Jere answers:

Cost that you need to consider:-
1. Your website: how much is the cost per year
My suggestion: register here and your website cost will be the cheapest and at the same time you are earning unlimited income ( http://www.website.ws/powercontrol )

My website also done through the above link, u can have a look as a sample: http://www.silverroad.ws
2. What type of toys?
My suggestion: Made in china toys are cheap but cant last long, get the toys from IKEA or Disney!!

3. How big is your business.
Go for moderate size of business as a starting

Jere answers:

One of the first things I would recommend that you do is start thinking about your interests/passions… And go into an internet business that is based on that. Why? Because it makes the work a lot easier.

Answering the following questions should help you develop ideas:

1) what websites do you visit when you’re just surfing online?
2) do you have pets?
3) do you play and sports?
4) do you collect anythings?
5) do you have any specialized education?

See what I mean….

After that,you’ve got to decide the business model that you want to use – do you want to develop you own product or do you want to be an affiliate marketer (market other peoples products)?

Then you’ve got to learn basic skills such as building and uploading websites, setting up autoresponders, setting up a merchant account to take orders, etc.

And then, probably the most important part… You have got to learn how to market you business.

If your interested in starting up your own internet business, then I would like to recommend the following great resource:

http://www.affiliatemarketinglessons.com/internet_business_startup.html

This program shows you, step-by-step, how to create a sucessful online busines. But, what is unique about this, is that the creator of the program also provides you with a special hotline, so that you have one-on-one assistance at anytime.

If your interested in affiliate marketing (marketing other people’s products/services) then you’ll want grab a copy of this book – http://www.affiliatemarketinglessons.com/superaffiliate.html

If your interested in joining an existing internet business, then I would recommend SFI Marketing Group (http://affiliatemarketinglessons.com/SFI.html). I would recommend that you join this opportunity either way because 1) its Free and 2) you’ll learn a lot through their training.

Anyways, I hope this helps… And I wish you much success.

For more information, you can try out the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs – http://www.affiliatemarketinglessons.com/iahbe.html

Jere answers:

Hello,
Just as in the Princess Bride, Grandpa says “when I was your age, TV was called books,” so in the same way books the way that people researched colleges when I was in high school. I am a librarian who remembers the Moon Landing, btw. What tended to happen is that prospective students requested a lot of information and pamphlets and course catalogs from colleges they were looking at, went to bookstores and libraries for college descriptions and rankings, and looked at rankings in US News and World Reports. They went to college fairs and asked guidance counselors questions, contacted alumni associations in the
ir towns, and, once they narrowed the field a bit, often went on trips to college campuses.
These days it is both easier and harder to get good college information. While the university that you are looking at may have an excellent website with great admissions web pages, there are also all kinds of marketing sites that come up when I do an online college search. Many of the links on the first page of results of any college information search are from marketing groups that are not necessarily concerned with information but rather with persuasion. Sorting through the links can be a lot of work, and so I still often use a combination of books and news articles as well as the free internet when helping students search for college information.

Nicolette
Librarian
Michigan

Jere answers:

It’s who you know.

If you have a lot of contacts in the field, you will hear about unadvertised openings.

That 5% figure is bull. 95% of job openings are not “hidden”. If they were, most of the country would be unemployed.

Try looking at employment ads in trade publications or on association websites.

Jere answers:

Go to http://www.score.org/mentors and enter your zip code. On the next screen, you will get information on the nearest SCORE chapter. Call them and arrange for a free meeting with a volunteer SCORE mentor. They will guide you through the process and you can meet with them as many times as you need to.

SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide and is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

SCORE has 350 chapters in locations throughout the United States and its territories, with 13,000 volunteers nationwide. Both working and retired executives and business owners donate time and expertise as business mentors.

Jere answers:

Assuming that you already know what your going to be selling, then you’ve got to learn basic skills such as building and uploading websites, setting up autoresponders, setting up a merchant account to take orders, etc.

And then, probably the most important part… You have got to learn how to market you business. I would like to recommend either one of the following great resources:

If you don’t have much experience with computers and the Internet – http://www.affiliatemarketinglessons.com/warpspeedwealth.html

If you have good experience with computers and the Internet – http://www.affiliatemarketinglessons.com/IS2006.html

Be sure to check out the money back guarantees …you simply cannot loose. They can offer such guarantees because of their success rate…

You’ll be able to find specific guidelines on how to launch your website – find a hosting company, designing your website for success, uploading your websites, how to get free traffic, how to build your business, etc.

Hope this helps….

PS For more home business advice, you can check out The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs (http://www.affiliatemarketinglessons.com/iahbe.html)

Jere answers:

I’m going to offer up some advice free of charge because I Googled you and love your website and what you do. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside and I hope that I can be of service.

Keep on keeping on with the site and your social media.

I’m going to say that your target demographic is parents (and grandparents). Here’s what I would do:

Target your local schools, preschools, MOMS Clubs, libraries, parks and any social circles/clubs that the local grandmothers frequent (cooking, knitting, reading, etc).

Once you have that covered, keep expanding your reach to neighboring counties and communities until you’ve conquered the world. 🙂

Create a media kit / press packet. For the places that are outside a reasonable driving distance, this is most important. Give them a personal call and say “Hey, I’m this awesome person from Project Kids Give. Here’s what we do. By the way, could you provide your mailing or email address so I can send you a little more information?” Then link it over to them so they can look it over. Ask the clubs (like MOMS Clubs) if they’ll send it to all of their members.

Visit online forums for parents, especially ones for the 3-8 year old age range. Chat it up with them. Provide genuinely helpful information with a link to your site as a reference to who you are.

Look into advertising online via websites that are targeted for parents: anything from parenting magazines to toy stores. Those ads can garner widespread exposure.

Contact local, state and national news/media sources: newspapers, radio, tv. Get your press releases and your elevator pitch ready. Show them that you’re a newsworthy story, that you are a cause worth talking about.

If I can be of any further assistance in helping you with your marketing or technical endeavors, please feel free to contact me. Good luck!

Jere answers:

You can start a virtual assistant business and use these organizations to help you find work

?International Virtual Assistants Association http://www.ivaa.org/
?Alliance for Virtual Businesses http://www.allianceforvirtualbiz.com/
?International Association of Administrative Professionals http://www.iaap-hq.org/
?Virtual Assistant Networking Forum (VANF) http://www.vanetworking.com/
?Virtual Business Group http://www.virtualbizgroup.com/
?Virtual-Professionals.com http://www.virtual-professionals.com/

Another option for you is to be part of a virtual call center, which is one of the growing work at home businesses today

Read this MSNBC’s article on this industry http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7739611/ns/business-us_business/t/call-center-agents-without-call-centers/#.TknJns1lYjw

AOL also published an article about virtual call centers, and named it as one of the best work at home jobs http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/01/27/work-from-home-jobs-for-retirees/

Some companies where you can apply

Alpine Access http://www.alpineaccess.com = no fees and you will be considered as an employee, not as an independent contractor

LiveOps http://www.liveops.com/ = considers agents as independent contractors; no upfront fee but requires applicants to pay for the background check

Of course, you can also choose to start your own business from home. It will depend on what you can do, what suits you and what could fit in your resources. Some examples

Best Businesses Using Craft or Physical Skills
– antique restoration
– auto detail service
– carpet cleaning business
– errand/delivery service
– housecleaning business

Best Service Businesses
– bed and breakfast operator
– caregiver
– catering service
– senior day care center
– tutoring service

Best Professional Businesses
– desktop publisher
– magazine writer
– import/export service
– income tax preparation service
– event planner

Jere answers:

A true business credit card is a line of credit that is taken in the name of the business, under the business’ credit. Activity, whether good or bad, is reflected on your business’ credit report through D&B and other financial institutions, and the liability for any debts incurred and bills owed is with the business.

However, some companies out there offer “business” credit cards which they require a person guarantee for. These institutions will often ask for a personal guarantee, and will almost always ask for a social security number from the person applying for the card. If this is the case, the credit card is not a business credit card, but is simply a personal credit card which is used for the business. The business is not liable for bills and debts – you are.

When applying for a credit card for your business, watch out for areas asking for your SSN (and not your TaxID or EIN) and be wary of any credit card that asks for a personal guarantee. By ensuring that your credit card is in the name of your business, you can help to build your business’ credit, while avoiding creating problems with your own.

Many companies offer a list of credit cards that are issued under the business name only. Those lists typically run $300-$900, depending on the quality of the information inquiring. I would suggest starting your search online via google or yahoo. Search for “strong business credit” (just like that in quotes) to find services that sell the information.

Good luck,

Ilya Bodner
Small Business Owner
Initial Underwriting Group

Jere answers:

1. Give Testimonials When you purchase a CD, music book, or any product or service and it exceeds your expectations, e-mail the band/business a testimonial. Tell them in the testimonial the benefits you got from the product or service. Give them permission to publish the testimonial on the web site if they include your sig file at the end.

2. Leave A Message When you visit a web site with a discussion board, leave a message. You could post a question, interesting content or a compliment about their web site. Include your signature file at the end of the message. Some discussion boards let you post your banner ad or text link. DON’T spam the board. Offer good, solid comments and your effort will be rewarded. That goes for the next unique way too…post the unique qualities of your band

3. Sign Guestbooks When you visit a well designed website leave a compliment on their guest book. You could give them a compliment on their content, ease of navigation, graphics etc. When you post your compliment include your signature file so other people will see it when they sign the guest book.

4. Write A Review When you visit a website you enjoyed a lot, write a review for the website. Write about the benefits you gain from the site, the website design, interesting online services it offers etc. E-mail the review to the site. Tell them they can publish it on their web site if they include your resource box at the end.

5. Send An E-mail To The Editor When you read a good article or enjoy a certain e-zine, e-mail a compliment to the editor. Give the editor permission to publish the compliment in their e-zine if they include your signature file at the end. The editor may post it on his or her website.

6. Also try google plus

7. Post some videos of them like a teaser in youtube . May be some samples nicely edited.

8. Best of all is word of mouth.

Jere answers:

Sounds like a great idea –
I too have been doing consulting and various small business actives for a number of years (currently am running four ventures).

I have looked at several competing groups over the years, but to this date have not actually purchased any yet. Here are some adds to your list:

* Identify the real assets of the organization – is it in the products, people or some combination of the two. If it is only the people, then your attrition costs could be higher than initially thought if you lose the key person (people) that are really satisfying the customers.

* I think that you are saying that the organization is in another country – if so, there very well could be local, state or federal governmental laws, regulations or other rules of business that could come into play. Ensure that your legal fees come from that country (or sometimes even various states within the USA) to ensure that you meet all local rules.

* Depending how long the organization has been in business, what will be the cost of changing the name of the company if in fact you intend to do that. If you keep their name and also have your own, then will you develop a competition between the two groups that will waste advertising dollars? Think through how to combine the two organizations to maximize the service to your customer base.

* What might current or perspective customers think of this purchase, merger or buyout? Will a purchase cause some conflict with local client in the other country now that they perceive that an outside (not one of them) is running the company?

* What are the Cost of Poor Quality (common calculations can be found in anything dealing with Six Sigma – http://www.isixsigma.com/dictionary/Cost_of_Poor_Quality_-_COPQ-63.htm) numbers in the accounting of both organizations? Will this purchase help or hurt your organizations?

* Do you have a mastermind group that can help you through this process? What would it take to develop a mastermind group if you do not already have one?

* Might you need various forms of professional help to run the businesses once they are both on line? Since you can only be physically in one place at a time (although net meetings are great), how will you ensure that each location is running smoothly and that customer satisfaction is the highest priority at each location?

These are a few questions that I come up with just off the top. There are other factors depending on the specifics of this particular purchase option. One suggestion that I might offer is for you to talk a very close look at the people you would have at each location and see how you can develop them into real entrepreneurs so that at some point they just run with ideas and grow the businesses for you.

You might use my standard advise to new owners (you already know most of this) with your employees to help convince them that they are important to you and that you really want them to stay around (given of course that you really do):

Anytime you want to start any kind of business, there are several basics that you will need:

* You should first sit down and think about what it is you want to do and then write out the scenario in detail! This may sound tedious, but it will help you clarify what it is you are thinking about. Also, when you talk to anyone about the business (mentor, bank, clients, prospective investor), you will have a clear vision to share with him or her. You can check any number of books at your local library or the Internet for ideas on creating a business plan or goals list.

* Is there anyone out there doing something like what you want to do already? Can you research what it is that they do and maybe even talk with them about what they do?

* Are there businesses out there that are doing some aspect that you want to do? In this case, you want to create an online drop shipment business. What websites have you seen that you like (can you talk with them)? How does the local McDonalds or other retail outlet do business that might help you in yours (i.e. How is McDonalds able to provide a product to a customer on demand at almost anytime of day – and do it with a much of high school kids)?

* Never listen to anyone who says that you CANNOT do something UNLESS they have been there and tried that!!!!! Anyone can tell you the good things that you can try or do, however, only someone who has actually tried the specific thing your are thinking can truly give you advise on the pitfalls that could await the unsuspecting.

* If you want to look for a mentor (free or paid – although mentors usually offer their time at no cost), the question that you should be ready to address is WIIFM (What In It For Me {the mentor})! What are you willing to do for your mentor to help them with something that they may need (for me it’s simple – I am looking for 10 points 🙂

Contacts:

* Contact your local Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce – they have business people who will help start up operations.

* Contact your local high school, community college or university and find out whom the teachers are for courses related to your business (like business or computer/internet classes). Contact these teachers to get some ideas or even to see if they will take you company startup on as a class project or special project for some of the student to work on (might give the students extra credit and you a free startup). In the worst case, you might get the names of some good students whom you might hire to do certain aspects of what you need at a very low cost.

* Contact you local, county or state governments (check their websites) – many areas have small business administrations (or some other agency that can help with various things) that have any number of references and resources available at little or no cost.

* Go to your local library in the Reference Section and find the Encyclopedia of Associations. It is a three-book set published by Gale Research. The first book lists thousands of tiles of professional organizations and groups. It will give a code number to use in the other two books to find out more about that organization. Contact the organizations who have something to do with your idea and find out if they have a services to give you advise or local groups that you can network with. In many cases, just asking for membership and publications information may give you a lot of useful stuff.

Other outstanding sources that I have used in running my four businesses:

* Nightingale-Conant – the largest producer of audio/video training programs in the world. Many of their programs can be borrowed for free from local libraries. Http://www.nightingale.com

* Entrepreneur Magazine (http://www.entrepreneurmag.com) – many great tips and ideas about running a company.

* Rich Dad Poor Dad – http://www.richdadpoordad.com/ – by Robert Kiyosaki. Has any number of products (read the book first) that you can choose from.

* Start Up Nation (besides their website, they have a radio show that may be on in your area – usually Sundays and read the book) http://www.startupnation.com/index.asp

The secret to success in business is to read everything that you can relate to your subject and to talk with as many people in the field as possible.

Good Luck.

Jere answers:

First, you should go the the Better Business Bureaus website, www.bbb.org. On their site you can research a company and see if they are a member of BBB, see if any complaints have been filed against the company, and a last know address and telephone number should be listed.

If you find the necessary information to contact the company, I would do so, make sure to ask to be on a recorded line for quality assurance purposes, do not use any foul language and present your issue in a courteous manner. If the customer service representative that you receive can not resolve your issue, ask to speak to their supervisor or manager. This may require a call back, so make sure you note the date and time you spoke with the customer service representative, any ID/name they provide you with at the beginning of the call, any reference number they provide you with, and what department they are in. You will need this information at a later time. Usually, a promise of a call back from a supervisor or manager is within 24 hours of your request. Make sure to add, that if you do not hear back from the supervisor or manager, you will be filing a complaint with the Attorney Generals Office, this should ensure you receive a call back. If and when you receive a call back, make note of the same information I provided above and once again request that you call is on a recorded line for quality assurance purposes. If your issue is still not resolved, go forth with placing a complaint with the Attorney Generals Office.

If you can not find the company on the BBB website I would go to your state’s Attorney Generals website. There you can file a complaint against the company, the department that would handle your complaint would be Consumer Affairs. Be very specific in your complaint to the details of your issue. This will ensure that your complaint will be investigated and resolved. Best of all this is a free service which assists you with legal matters. The Consumer Affairs Department, does all of the research and investigation and imposes what remedies the company must provide. To find their website type in your state followed by Attorney Generals Office. The website will look like this www.doj.your states abbreviation/consumer/. We will use Maryland as an example; www.doj.md/consumer/. Make sure to include all of the avenues you have tried to rectify the issue, including trying to locate them on the BBB website. The more precise you are in filing you complaint will result in the best outcome.

In conclusion, keep making your monthly payment that was greed under the contract, this will ensure not interruption in service and no cancellation in your contract. If you require additional assistance, please contact me.

Best wishes.

Jere answers:

I took a look at their site, didn’t really see anything on it.
My suggestion would be to call customer support
1-800-VERIZON (1-800-837-4966)

Jere answers:

Makeup, Haircare,are not deductible on the Federal Tax return. Those are considered personal care items
Clothing is only if it is for a Uniform that you are required to wear and it can not be worn as every day clothing.

Internet and and cell phone only the portion in relation to your job

Daughters Tuition, NO, only Post secondary educational expenses (colleges, university) are deductible

The Telephone Excise Tax credit is a one time credit with a maximum deduction of 60.00 based on the number of exemptions claimed on your return.

Mortgage Interest on your home is deductible if you are Itemizing your deductions rather than taking the Standard deduction for your filing status.

Http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=164032,00.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p936/index.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p529/index.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch26.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/index.html

Jere answers:

I’m not paying a $100 a month for mobile phone service. I don’t know how much they cost but if they are expensive (meaning more than a couple hundred) then I pass. They will come down in price and someone will notice every shortcoming it has and come out with something better and cheaper. I don’t need a phone with movies or even music on it. Going to internet would be good though. A camera can be handy.

Jere answers:

Ultimately, if the people you’re pranking are determined enough, the call can be traced but only through the company skype

hope this helps 🙂
and if you get the chance, please sign my guestmap, thanx 🙂
============================================
http://www.realityisautomatic.com

Jere answers:

Hey there mate!

The Philippines’ Music Industry is quite active indeed. But be it be the most active…possibly but there are a lot of competition we have to win before being called the greatest.

Activeness in this line of business would vary based on a number of factors. It could be in terms of how the local artists’ produced records, performance, gigs, documentaries, public appearances, bookings, TV/Radio/Ad commercials, online exposure, downloads, culture, marketing to Local and International communities abroad, etc.

Aside from the local artists…the industry is contributed also by foreign artists that would do performances in the country.

Ratings would depend also with the music genre that is quite popular in the a particular location and a particular crowd.
—–
Now it seems that you are quite interested more into “Bands”. Basing it from you YA ID…it seems that we are referring it more on the Alternative Rock, and RAP/RnB genre.

With the Alternative Rock and RAP/RnB genre…yes we are quite active. We are actually competing for being the most active with countries like some of the Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia…to name a few), and Oriental countries (China, Japan, and Korea).

If there is a genre that we are quite famous for…its for Solo Artists who performs Easy Listening Music (Ballad, Mellow, Soft Pop, Smooth Jazz, Light RnB…). Believe it or not, Charisse Pempengco created a stir when she was featured in the US and UK. It made the country’s music industry active in search of talents and producing LPs for the said genre.

Hope this helps.

Jere answers:

That would be your second biggest mistake. Your first was purchasing a copyright. You should never never never do that. It shows publishers and agents you distrust them and they get very nasty about it sometime. It is an almost guaranteed slush pile move. You own the rights to your work automatically the minute you write it. The best protection is to just NOT spread it around on the internet. If and when you sell the book, your publisher will obtain a copyright as a part of a standard book contract. Purchasing a copyright tells publishers and agents you are not professional. Only amateurs do that.

And you have been given some bum information regarding the so called “poor man’s copyright” where you mail a copy to yourself. A copyright is only as good as the high priced attorney you pay to defend it. A “poor man’s copyright” does not stand up in court without major additional evidence to support it. No lawyer would take the case to defend one. There are literally dozens of ways to beat it. The latest is backdating your computer, stealing a story online and burning a disk with a date of a few years ago. Just like that, someone lost a story. And I hate to tell you, but it is possible for someone to plagiarize your work and you not even know it until it hits the book stores. And tell me what you do if someone in Malaysia plagiarizes you? Where do you hold the trial – here or Malaysia? Just don’t share your work online or pass around copies and your claim to the material will hold up.

I sure do wish people would skim through other questions before they ask. They would see all this information is archived to help them.

No, you do not send the manuscript to the publisher. You follow their submission guidelines to the letter. Usually that means sending a query letter with a synopsis. If they express interest, they will ask for a full or partial manuscript and a book proposal. You have to learn how to write a proposal. There are books that will help. It is a very important document. It is your #1 selling tool. Make sure it is a good one.

That being said, as a person with experience in children’s books – let me tell you the real deal about kids’ books.

The odds are heavily stacked against you. You have chosen the most difficult thing in the publishing business – getting a children’s book published.

Let me describe for you the current nature of the children’s book market. I just finished ghostwriting two children’s books for a very major sports figure – already sold to a very major NY publisher. The first is with artist now and due out in Spring. I am currently working on another one with others to follow. This information was given to me by a Senior Editor at the publisher I write for (one of the top 5 Publishers in the world) …

40% of children’s books published today are by celebs like Madonna, Jamie Lee Curtis etc.

40% are written by existing, established children’s authors like Eric Carle.

15-20% are reprints of children’s classics like Curious George.

That leaves at best 5% for new authors.

And that percentage is being cut into by adult authors like Carl Hiaasen and Mary Higgins Clark entering the children’s market recently.

As a result, most A list publishers aren’t even reading children’s books right now, which means agents arent either. Agents only read what they can sell.

There is very little room to break into the children’s market. Only books that are extremely exceptional and have huge appeal stand a chance. Forget any holiday related books – the selling season is too short to make money.

And most publishers have huge backlogs of children’s books they have purchased and are not published yet. It takes about a year for a children’s book to make it out – often MUCH MUCH More. It usually takes an artist about a month a page to illustrate. So most publishers have their production schedules for children’s books filled out for the next few years.

Take a walk through any major childrens’ book department and you will confirm what I am telling you. Getting a childrens’ book done is almost impossible – and getting an advance for it is virtually out of the question anymore. Unless you fall into one of those categories above. I am fortunate to have the backing of a very major sports star to get me in the door with kids books. I write adult novels, but believe me I have tried with kids books before and failed for exactly the reasons I list here.

Ghostwriting has gotten me in through the back door, and now I will be able to sell some of the children’s books that have my name on them. For now, someone else’s name is on the cover. Someone whose name sells books – big time. Don’t ask me how you can get a ghostwriting deal for a major sports star … I really backed into this. It was a gift from Heaven really and it is a blast working with this person too!!! My mantle is now covered with sports memorabilia worth a fortune!! Presents. (I am watching out for OJ to invade my house and steal it LOL)

That is the nature of the beast. You might get a copy of Writers Market and search for some small publishers who are reading childrens’ books, but searching through the agents section, you will see that almost NO agents are reading childrens’ books. Try for some small publishers that read without going through an agent. Expect a lot of rejection. Develop a really thick skin and learn to advocate for yourself.

Always remember that before you send anything to anyone, check them out. Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write Water Cooler’s Bewares and Background Checks, Writers Weekly.com and Writers Wall are all great sources and totally free – although if they help you, it is nice to contribute a donation. Someone has to pay for running the sites. If you do not see information on the publisher or agent in question, write to Dave K at Preditors and Editors, Victoria Strauss or James Macdonald at Absolute Write or Angela Hoy at Writers Weekly. They are happy to pass along any info they have to help you.

As for self publishing it – it will get you nowhere. Self published books dont make it to bookstores. Childrens’ books are impulse buys. What is out on the tables for kids to see is what sells. Kids don’t shop at websites for things like books. They have to hold them in their hand and nag Mom to buy it. The only way to achieve that is through a good traditional publisher. I recently read an article in the paper about a woman who self published a childrens’ book. She refinanced her house for over 60 thousand dollars and invested it in self publishing. She has recouped less than 10% of her money and is in danger of having her house foreclosed on.

I have starred a lot of great Q and A regarding writing on my profile. You can access it and print out the pages. Start a notebook you can refer to. There s a lot of good information here and I add more as I see good ones. I am doing it to help others. Feel free to use it. Add me as a fan and get the regular updates. Keep writing. Remember you have to need to grow a hide as thick as a herd of elephants. There will be rejection letters and plenty of them. Most authors save theirs. I recently came across my very first. I may have it bronzed.

Just keep writing. Be exceptional!!

Good luck. Pax – C

Jere answers:

Enrich members can claim Malaysia Airlines award flights online with dynamic pricing, which means the price in miles will go down or up depending on demand. The program does not have an award chart online. Members must input their desired departure airport and destination online to receive the amount of miles that will need to be redeemed.

Jere answers:

Hello,

(ANS) I would be highly dubious about ANY University that offered a PHd course via the internet. 99% of such courses are just a scam, a con, a rip off. Any such qualification will more than likely be completely bogus DON’T be naive here.

**YES! Of course there are real distance learning courses such as the famous Open University here in the UK.

**Have you checked out how real (if at all?) Atlantic Int University in Hawaii is? Is there such a University? Do they have a phone number, do they have a real bricks & mortar office, do they have a website, how long have they existed? How long has this PHd been going. How long is the course, what are the qualifications needed to undertake this course.

**Most real PH’d courses require a student to have at least a first degree to even begin such a course.

ITS PROBABLY A SCAM !! You pay your money & get a bogus PH’d certificate which is not worth the paper its printed on.

Ivan

Jere answers:

An online business is a business that is run via the internet. These businesses may include retailing, outsourcing of services, reselling of items of your own or other companies/people’s products, being an infopreneur and many others. Finding an online business that you can make money from may require you to create a website that advertises your business and items, registering yourself on certain websites or forums where you can advertise your services and finding clients from the rather huge world of the internet.

Identify your area of expertise. Do you have any information that others will benefit from?
Write down some keywords that you will be using on your website and check out the demand for your keywords using the many keyword tools available.
Use to determine the Google supply(the number of websites that are built around those keywords) for your keywords.
Determine profitability of your keywords using the formula ‘Demand number/Supply number’.
Research what people are looking for and buying online by going to different forums, Google Trends, Ebay.com and www.amazon.com and places like www.ezinearticles.com and look at their top sellers or articles. Find a niche that looks interesting and do more research. Think about what and why people buy things online.
The goal of all of your research is to come up with a business idea that people are interested as compared to just starting a business that you want to create.
Knowing what you can easily offer people online and what business you can successfully run and make money out of is the first step in running an online business.
Create a list of keywords and plan your pages according to what people are looking for.

Jere answers:

Hey Om,

You can do some business listing for your company website.
You can also go with other Off page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) activities like Forum, Blog, Directories submission, Search engine submission etc.
You have to do On page activities like Title tag, Meta tag, alt tag creation etc.
But most important work is appropriate keyword analysis for your company.

By all these activities you can introduce your business online or we can say through SEO you can increase your website as well as company visibility in online world.
But if you are not aware of all of SEO activities than consult good SEO services company for this.
SEO is one of the cheaper thing for get visible in online world in long term.

Thanks

Jere answers:

Here ya go

1. Go to www.sba.gov

2. Got to www.legalzoom.com

3. Go to www.copyright.gov

Jere answers:

First you start a retail business. “Online” isn’t a business model. Once you have a successful business, you hire a web developer to build you a website.

If you want to do it all yourself you’re going to have to learn HTML, CSS, computer programming, Javascript, PHP and SQL (to start). Figure 2-5 years.

You don’t perform operations on yourself, do you? Or represent yourself in court? Why do you think you can develop your own website? It takes almost as long to learn website development as it takes to learn medicine or law. (Do your own site and do it wrong and you could get sued by customers who were financially injured by your lack of knowledge – and your business would be out of business, and paying off a HUGE judgment.)

Jere answers:

On line WON’T WORK… And you have not even remotely considered this business venture seriously yet.
But the business concept is a potential success, however you are looking at this completely in a word WRONG
if you have a large enough city, ability to undercut established competition, offer delivery, work for free or lose lots of money, and are dealing with highly flammable gas, plus the Mylar, plastics and other balloon materials, are of such a nature, you could have damaged 500 retail dollars of product in a blink of an eye. And have related business products that have a far higher profit margin and far greater volume.
There is a chain of stores exceeding 6000 units that sells balloons, and their design is to use the balloons as a traffic generator.
Your product is an impulse item, fairly cheap and have very small profit margins, plus is briefly labor intensive.
People send/take balloons to hospitalized folks, and for new born babies, for the benefit of the parents, to birthday parties of all ages, retirement parties at work, sometimes to family pic- nic, for the children to tie a message to, and release, seeing who finds and replies, carnivals/downtown festivals, where impulse spending occurs.
Where you won’t sell weddings for the most part, and not likely funerals, unless the departed requested it, job firings and people being sent to jail.
Why don’t you start by reading some entrepreneur manuals, any of the for dummies books in marketing, or eBay or small business…contact SCORE, business coaches, who can help in lots of areas, which is FREE, as part of the Small Business Administration. [Government/federal, phone book SBA]
if you are going to try to sell on line, you need price, being cheaper than brick and mortar store fronts, quality equal to the stores, and the fact people will wait for delivery, and therefore as you have lower costs, you offer lower price.
In a related type of product that might allow you to succeed, I suggest the following: flags national, universities, historical, holiday, and fun or seasonal flags… In the same product line is wind socks and wind chimes. And for a final line bird feeders and bird houses.

Jere answers:

Funny how people will fall for any scam out there.

Jere answers:

I have been very successful using EBAY.

Send me an email at BOB_FORD@SBCGLOBAL.NET for the details.

BOB F

Jere answers:

Market research would be a good thing to do and then you would know what your cleints need too as well as yourselfs

Jere answers:

Real estate agents use Multiple Listings to sell their services. They all have web sites too.

Direct mail had been proven to be useless in marketing studies. Fax marketing is just plain annoying. Email is spam.

Forget about it.

Jere answers:

You have to visit each office personally. Have your menu with you (that shows your website, and your e-mail address), and drop it off at the reception desk. Ask “Who do I call to follow up on this.” You’ll almost always get the name of the person responsible for ordering food in. Make your followup phone call a day or two later.

Repeat for 10 offices each day. There is no shortcut to this process.

Jere answers:

Email Marketing is very much in trend right now. If you have an email account then you must be quite aware about the emails you get every day. Companies want to target their customers in all possible ways and emails are something that most of the people use on everyday basis. It has become our routines to check emails and look for something interesting. If you use email marketing in a right way then you might get the desired business only through this source.

People are scared of spending money to buy email lists but I say if we are getting good deals, loads of emails and that too without wasting time to search for it then why not. Its going to repay back with profits only. Imagine reaching company’s CEO or such higher authorities directly to promote your business. Doesn’t it sound good. You just need to find a perfect way.

Our company has been buying data from http://frescodata.com since last eight months or so and we haven’t faced a problem yet. They keep updating their data regularly. Best for B2B dealing I would say. We recently bought 2 Million Australian Business executive email list and it was perfect. See the website I hope you will find what you are looking for.

All the best!!

Jere answers:

Greg,
There many programs available that can make you a lot of money, however there also a lot of programs that are worthless. The question is, how will you know which is which.

You can go to review sites that will compare different programs, but again you must know how to analyze it. You can ask your friends who are already successful, but ultimately you have to make an informed decision and bear the consequences.

To be able to do that you must know enough, or as much as you can about internet marketing, do not jump into it without preparing yourself. Too many programs are over-hyped and sold for $200 to over $1,000, it might have worked for the promoters but will it work for you?

My suggestion is to learn about internet marketing first. The market is huge, you are not limited to sell in your own city but you can sell worldwide. However, to minimize the hassle, do not start selling your own product but become an affiliate of a reputable company like Amazon or Clickbank.

Amazon is the largest internet marketer ($28 billion), it started with books but is now very big in electronics. You have to become an affiliate and promote it on your website.
Clickbank offers digital products from many vendors wordlwide, and their commission is much bigger than Amazon, it can start at a few dollar to over $100 per sale. The good things is you only have to do the sale, everything else – from billing to delivering and paying your commission is handled by Clickbank.

The key is to
– promote sale-able products, (which one?)
– find a niche market (who is likely to buy it)
– create a web site (how to make an attractive sales page?)
– get a high ranking with Google search ( search engine optimized)
– generate traffic (what keywords to use?)
– promote it to them. (how to make it appealing?)
– and hope that they will buy (call to action to generate conversion)

In the end the most important factors are how to get Traffic (visitors) and how to get Conversion (they buy).

You can learn this for free – with Ebooks and Videos – at
http://www.internet-marketingtools.biz/
Prepare to really study all the material, do it at your own pace but try to understand all the steps. The programs are done on a step by step basis, so you can progress at your own speed.

Once you have done this, you will be better equipped and can easily compare different programs and choose the one that fits your needs.

Sorry, it is a little long to answer your question but if you do this you will be in charge of your own destiny not just depending on biased reviews.

Hope this helps

Victor

Jere answers:

Tasha-
This is a problem that most people encounter. A fews things to keep in mind before purchasing hair extensions.
1. Make sure that you buy extension that match your color and texture. All super-expensive hair isn’t for everyone. Neither is the lower priced hair. Look and feel the hair in the store and holding it up to yours even trying to blend it in with yours to make sure its the right match.

2. If you are doing them yourself its all about placement. If you are experienced with them you are likely to not be satisfied with the end result of things. You want your tracks to be covered and blended well some when you walk, run, jog, dancing or whatever its looks and moves like your own! Also make sure to bruch them regularly to keep them tangle free.

3. If you are going to a salon be sure that that person is skill and ask for reference and photos of previous work. SO many people will do anything for a quick buck.

These are just a few things that will help you along your extension journey! Feel free to visit my hair care blog at http://couturecoiffres.blogspot.com and follow me!

Also if you are in the Chicagoland area in search of a stylist feel free to contact me at haircaremaven@gmail.com or at www,platinumimages.biz in the “Contact us” section. All inquiries are answered within 24 hours!

These are just a few thing

Jere answers:

Prelims; yes
why free-so they can get your title insurance biz.
Pure and simple

Jere answers:

Http://www.biz.indygov.org/

You don’t necessarily have to pay. Above is the link for the Marion County government web site. I found it by googling “Marion County” and “Indiana.”

If you click on “court records” at the top of that page, it seems to indicate that you need to pay with a credit card to view online. I don’t get that because in many states like Florida, it’s all open access and free.

However if you click on “property search” at the top of that page, it looks like you can do property searches for free. That generally tells you who bought a property, what they paid for it, and what the taxes are — not liens per se.

Usually to find out if someone had a lien put on them, you would go to the county clerk of court web site — sometimes you can find these things by googling the name of the county, along with search terms like “clerk, court, official records,” etc.

Then look for a link that says something like “official records” or “public records.”

They really shouldn’t be charging you for this. But if you have to pay anyone, I guess it would be best to go through the county’s web site and do it. It probably would be cheaper than going through some online private investigator service.

Try surfing around on the web site link above — it may very well be there’s a link somewhere that lets you search the county’s public records for free. But if it’s there, I didn’t find it.

Hope this helps.

Jere answers:

She isn’t ur real friend. She’s using you for secrets. Tell her you didn’t like that she did that and if she keeps doing it, drop her like a sack of BRICKS

Jere answers:

What kind of services are you looking for?
I am registered with the chambert of commerce here in tx as a personal business secretary, here at home I have my own office/
personal computer/fax/copier, but if you are looking for somebody
close by, go to chamber of commerce or go online and put personal
business secretary/services.

Jere answers:

Since your business is local wrt the range in which you can get customers – your marketing and advertising need to be local as well. Never count on just one marketing idea to get the word out – you need a whole strategy – think more, more, more.

Consider the kind of people and families who get on location family or couple photos. My experience is most of the time they are upscale. I lived in San Diego for ten years. So, it makes sense to market in the upscale communities like Del Mar, La Jolla, Carlsbad, Rancho Santa Fe and others.

If you want to get in with an upscale crowd you have to hang out where they hang out.

Here’s one good idea: Do some research either online or through the newspaper or at the library and find out what kind of charity events are coming up in the next few months. This is a perfect time of year to do it – because the holidays are coming up and that’s when these events take place. Many events will either sell raffle tickets for prizes or have a silent auction.

Offer a basic level photography package as a prize or silent auction item, but make sure that means you get one free ticket to the event. Or, at the very least, they give you a deeply discounted ticket for the event itself.

When the event is advertised your business name will show up as someone who donated a prize. There will be a table or tables with all the prizes/auction items. Get dressed up, go to the event and network like crazy with these people. Hand out business cards – and get ’em from others.

And consider promotional onsite photos for businesses too – like a picture of a CEO and staff standing outside their place of business. Do a good job on that shot and later his wife will be calling you to do their family portrait on the beach or against the backdrop of the old Spanish architecture at Balboa Park or something.

Hope this is helpful to you.

All the best,

Denise Michaels
Author, “Testosterone-free Marketing”
Get the book at: http://www.tfmbook.com
Visit me online at: http://www.mentoringwithdenise.com

Jere answers:

I use a small company for my internet marketing. They do a great job and drive a lot of business to me. ( www.internetmarketingofsandiego.com ). However, they type of business you would use is up to the type of your business. I have a local business, and this business specializes in local business marketing (I don’t need to have people in New York seeing my website as much as I need people in San Diego to view it).

If you have a more national or global business, then you would need to use some type of internet marketing, email marketing, sms marketing, search engine marketing company that would be able to get you widespread marketing. You can always do it yourself (see seomoz.org) but it is very time consuming and meticulous to get it to work right). I only pay about $200/mo and receive about $18,000 in business using a focused marketing company.

Jere answers:

You will need a webhost that supports php for osCommerce. I would recommend that you move away from Frontpage as it’s a product that no longer is supported by Microsoft. Instead, you can build a free professional website with Microsoft Office Live Small Business – http://starturl.com/officelive . It comes with a free online design tool that lets you create web pages without coding. Currently, MS is offering a free domain name (i.e. Yournonprofit.com) for the first year. To add ecommerce capability, you can add paypal buttons/shopping cart yourself or you can add the Store Manager add-on to your office live site.

Jere answers:

Today online shopping store is good business to open.

Jere answers:

I doubt that you can get names of people. That falls under the privacy act.
But you may be able to get the NUMBER of people from the service that reinstates licenses.

And I say “service” because I know that suspended registrations are reinstated by a service that is outsourced by the DMV. So maybe it’s the same with drivers licenses.

Maybe find out the most common reason for suspended license, like lack of insurance, and market to insurance companies.

Jere answers:

Nope, u have to join as a person
under federal laws/guidelines.

If u last and climb the pay grades u may
find it needed to do LLC.

Does not save u on taxes and cost more
to run every year.

Jere answers:

Printing can range from 15 to 6 cents (4×6 postcard) depending on quantity ordered
Mailing services 3 to 6 cents a piece
postage can be as low as 19 or 20 cents…but only if you use a professional mailing service ( because they sort/sequence the mail a special way) Of course pricing also depends on who you hire to do it.

…oh….and if you are going to mail to “every resident” in a specific route or area the postage can get as low as 14 cents.

There are some good direct mail tips on my personal site www.doranpeck.com and I am open to questions.

….the thing to remember about your direct mail….regard it as a vehicle for response rather than expecting it to actaully make the sale….that part is up to you personally.

..But until they actually respond…until they take that first step in the business relationship…none of the next ones will ever happen….so don’t be conservative…do what ever it takes to motivate them….then, its up to you to create a lifestime customer.

Jere answers:

What are your available financial resources for the weeks when Commission sales may be slow? Also, as you indicated, there are no Benefits , so Health Ins. And related items, are your direct responsibility. And they may cost you significantly more than the ‘group benefits’ at whataburger.

It’s your call; can you work at both places?

Jere answers:

Many companies sell their user data base

Jere answers:

I’m deeply concerned about the active role that the Fed is playing. Check out this article (especially the graphs):

http://www.mises.org/story/2905

ADDED: After today, not so much free fall as roller coaster:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080318/wall_street.html

The Fed charges in again!

Jere answers:

It’s a funny thing but I’m always reluctant to try things when they are first released. Switching from 3.1 to 95 was good but after that all upgrading was left as long as possible and done grudgingly ( usually having been pestered by family and friends) Same went for ’98. It seems that no sooner have I got used to something then they go and change it, make it bigger and more memory intensive. I’ve got a handle on XP now and have heard so many bad reports on Vista that I just don’t want to go there. When I bought this machine I had the choice and I stuck with XP and I’ll be doing that for as long as possible despite that my friend ( software reviewer ) has it and thinks it’s the biz.
If XP became suddenly obsolete I’d probably try Linux before Vista anyway, have heard many good things there.

Jere answers:

Not sure abt MPG caplets but, these things work against global warming…

Http://www.greenoholic.com/is-biodiesel-the-answer/
http://www.FuelCellReviews.com
http://www.Greenoholic.com/earth4energy.htm

Jere answers:

Here is a website you can review to give you an idea of how different markets are increasing, decreasing, or staying the same.

Http://realestate.msn.com/buying/Articlebankrate.aspx?cp-documentid=421682

Best Regards,
Jossi J Edwards
Omega Professional Realtors, Inc.
404-427-0062
http://jossiedwards.point2homes.biz

Jere answers:

Thousands of products with 100% money back guarantees

also YOU can list your products and have them adavertised to millions of buyers

here is all the catergories listed

Home | Search | Subscribe | About | Contact | Open a Store!

Check out the Most Popular Downloads in the Mall. Click Here.

Biz Ops, Debt, Education, Entrepreneur, Finance, Home Business, Investment, Jobs, Management, Resumes, …
Auctions, Promotion, Publishing, Reports, Web Design, Education, Management, Industrial, …

Blogs, Browsers, Domains, Email Services, Graphics, Network Administration, Programming, Site Design, Web Hosting, …
Search Engines, Banners, Classifieds, Consulting, eZines, How To’s, Promotion, Submitters, Resources, Safelists, Ideas, …

Autos, Casinos, Extreme, Golf, Horse Racing, New Betting Products, New Sports Products, Outdoors, Sports Picks, Team Sports, Training, …
Cooking & Recipes, Crafts, Family Tree, Garden, Home Improvement, Kids, Marriage, Parenting, Pets, Real Estate, Students & School, …

Addiction, Alternative, Beauty, Diet, Fitness, Medicine, Mental Health, Nutrition, Remedies, Spiritual Health, Women’s Health, …
Astrology, Games, Hobbies, Humor, Magic, Music, Novels & eBooks, Psychics, Screensavers, Tarot, …

Charity, Fine Arts, Investigation, Language, Law Enforcement, Love & Romance, Philosophy & Religion, Politics & Government, Science, Shopping, Travel, …
Free Traffic for All,
Free Banner Exchanges

here is the link

http://www.cbmall.com/?storefront=cbmoney

any questions E mail me from my profile address

Jere answers:

Hello.

Internet Marketing is a very broad subject and there are many ways to learn about it. One way is to take a class at your local college or university. Most schools now offer at least a basic course in their business schools.

Another way is to search for forums on internet marketing. The warrior forum comes to mind. There are a lot of smart marketers there with very good ideas on making money online.

To really succeed though, you will have to decide on what your business will be selling, because that’s what it is all about, selling and making money, at least in the beginning.

After having a significant amount of success, most marketers go into teaching to help others out, while at the same time making even more money from their home study courses.

There are many more ways to learn about this, but forums is a very good start.

Hope this helps.

Jere answers:

As far as I know there are recently published ”books” that cover these topics. However there are internet marketing universities online that have all the updated relevant info and techniques within their arsenal which they pass on to their students.

One of the most popular internet marketing universities is Wealthy Affiliate, which has up to date knowledge on email,article,ppc and forum marketing as well as the necessary tools and 24/7 support to allow someone with a work ethic to really succeed.

For free resources from Wealthy Affiliate see the below link

Jere answers:

Hey there,

Creating your own website isn’t that difficult. You just have to find the right website to start. It depends wheter you want to create sites with wordpress or with WYSIWYG converters.

I am very pleased with Chris Farrell’s site www.CreateYourOwnWebsiteWithChrisFarrell.com

He is a down to earth guy and one of the best explaining teachers. And affordable compared to others. He’ll give you tons of information. Even free hosting when you become member.
So for me he’s one of the best. Another good suggestion to start your search is the Warrior Forum.
Have good luck.

Jere answers:

I think that big forums might be the solution for your problems try these: http://warriorforum.com/,http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/index.php,http://www.moneymakergroup.com/forums.html,http://www.talkgold.com/forum/, etc

Jere answers:

Easiest way to protect aff links is php redirection
create a php file with this code:

save it as “somelink.php”
then link to somelink.php instead of your aff link.

What do you mean by maximising profit?
There are too many variables to consider, like traffic, conversion, offers etc. Try looking around IM forums like digital point and warrior forum.

Jere answers:

Hi there, online marketing is definitely a great way to grow a business. I have a system that shows you step by step what you need to do to set up online marketing. I’d be happy to email you some information to look at regarding online marketing and choosing a network marketing company.

Jere answers:

Viral marketing and word of mouth. You can do this by having something really interesting and unique to offer. Approach an influential blogger and let the person know about your site. Or issue a press release and alert media writers and editors about your release.

If you are offering something SPECIAL, word about the business will spread very fast. The key is to target the INFLUENCERS — those who can spread the word for you fast.

One of the classic viral marketing example is Hotmail, which spread so fast because of the link at the bottom of its emails. The movie Snakes on a Plane spread so fast on the Internet too (too bad nobody cared enough to go watch it in the movies)

Jere answers:

In theory, you should have received a paycheck and/or a payment slip detailing what you were being paid exactly. You should be able to use these documents to add up how much you received and include the information in your tax return. If you do not have those documents, then someone (your ex-boss) should have a copy somewhere, don’t you think?

Jere answers:

U.S. Can-Spam regulations (look it up) essentially says it’s not legal to market to an email address you don’t have a prior relationship with. In the internet marketing field they commonly recruit people to join their mail list with a “squeeze page” expressly designed to get that volunteered email address often offering some sort of incentive like an eBook or webinar. Those with plenty of material to promote have no problem spending $5 in ad cost to get a consumer to sign up to their list, confident they can earn it back within some months. It’s pretty common to use an email management service to maintain a clean email list, they insist that you get people to sign up to your list through the management company provided form, many don’t allow email lists to be imported. These services, like Aweber.com are often used for automated mail sequences, others like Constant Contact (I believe) are not so geared for automated message sequences. These services avoid getting on emailer blacklists by maintaining a good relationship with ISP postmasters and using multiple IP addresses, they often provide better deliver-ability rates than your own email account may.

Http://workhomebusiness.org/autoresponder-services-review/

Jere answers:

Email marketing and posting advertisements on classifieds is one of the most effectiveness way to get people interested about your business.

Jere answers:

Speak to the online bill payment company to see if that is acceptable, or contract with the individual companies the bills are from, to be a local payment station for them.

Jere answers:

If you plan to incorporate then you need to register with the federal,state and city government. If you plan to run the business as a sole proprietor then all you need is a business license from your local city government. Some cities do not require you to get a business license until the business makes $3,000 to $4,000 so see what your local government requires for an e-commerce business.

Steps for getting started:
First and foremost write up a business plan.
1. Forming the business either through incorporating or as a sole proprietor. If you plan to incorporate then you need to get with your states Secretary of State to do this.
2. Find your SIC and NAICS code you will need either one or both for your business formation with the government entities.
3. Getting an EIN if required
4. Setting up a Franchise and Excise Tax and Sales and Use Tax account with the Dept of Revenue in the state you are in. You need to determine if you need one or both of these accounts. Just call the Dept of Revenue in your state and they are usually pretty helpful in answering all your questions.
5. Set up a business bank account or bank account with a DBA attached to it if you plan to do the business as a sole proprietor if you incorporate then a business bank account is what you need.
6. Set up a merchant and or paypal account. The merchant account you can set up through your bank and this allows you to take all major credit cards.
7. Build a website and get a domain name and hosting. You can either build your own website or have one built for you, some start out with a blog because it’s free and you can make it look like a standard website so take a look at this option and see if it will work for you. Just keep in mind if you use a blog you need relevant content in the body of the blog if it’s just full of product links then you will eventually get shut down. As far as building your own you can either buy software or use the online website builders. Using the software allows you to create your site how you want it just make sure the hosting provider you use will support the software, with the online website builders you will be limited to their templates and I believe you have to use their hosting but you can buy your domain name from anywhere and just direct to their server.
Research SEO for your website, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and you can read about this at any article directory. Once in the directory put in a search for what you are wanting to read about and you should get some articles to read up on. If your search comes up empty or not what you are looking for just reword the search until you do. The info is there you just need to use the right phrasing. If you are on a tight budget you may also look into free ways to market your site.
8. Get inventory.
9. Figure out how you plan to ship product. This all comes down to how you plan to handle inventory. Some people have their own and some get involved with companies that have the product and you sell it and they drop ship the product for you. This saves on you having to carry the product yourself and having unsold inventory in your possession. If you plan to do affiliate marketing then you need to sign up to the affiliate programs and get your code specific links to post on your site.
10. Marketing your website. Just because you publish a website doesn’t mean it’s visible to the search engines and the public at large so you need to submit the site to the 3 top search engines at the least and start marketing the site.

This is a basic order and some of these may overlap each other during the process but I hope this helps out. I’ve been through the routine and had to figure it all out myself. Just ask a lot of questions with the people you are dealing with to get things in order.

Jere answers:

A direct deposit takes 2 business days. So if Republic Bank sent it on Saturday, that was on Monday’s business day. You should have it on Wednesday.

Jere answers:

Visit BLS.gov/OOH
it is Occupational Handbook which
describes all occupations. What is needed
pay scales and growth
read study apply info from
48 days to work u love Dan Miller
What colour is your parachute
both will help u so u do not go
the wrong way.

Jere answers:

If you are authorised to operate the business account, you can go to the bank and enquire about the balance in the account. You can also ask for a written statement of account.

.

Jere answers:

What generates a great story: it must be timely and interesting.

Before you can get a national news broadcaster to highlight your business, you’ll have to have considerable attention at the local level. If you want to do that (local), you can start by sending in a news release to the business editor of your local newspaper. Keep it short and factual. If you’re offering something new that no one else in the area offers, so much the better. As to format, keep it to a single page, and send it in on your letter to the business editor (find out his name first). You can find many sites online that tell you how to write a good news release.

Do include past history and any pro bono work you do in the community, as well as any boards you serve on, if relevant. (“NAME is also involved with The Joy Fund and Habitat for Humanity.”) But news releases aren’t brag-and-boast pieces; they’re merely to provide information to readers.

If you can enlist the aid of a PR person – even if only as a consultant – this would be helpful. They can tell you what events are newsworthy and which you should have a photographer covering. They also have contacts in the media, so it’s easier for them to get a story placed.

If you have a business weekly in your area, or a community supplement to the daily paper, those papers are always looking for new and newsworthy topics. Find out who the editor is. Again, if you’re the only one in your area who offers a particular service, you might be able to interest your newspaper (or supplement) in running a weekly or monthly column. You may not receive compensation, but the exposure would be great – and it would help you become the local “expert” in your field. And if you don’t have time to write, hire a freelance writer to do this for you.

When you give talks, you can leave behind handouts that direct people to your website.

Once you make a splash locally, you’re more likely to get the jump to national coverage.

Jere answers:

It takes time to build up a Twitter account, but if you do it properly you can achieve some great results.

You should target two types of individuals for your account. Individuals who are following cleaning-based Twitter accounts (offering cleaning advice) and Twitter accounts focused on your particular region. I would focus more on the region as your service can be utilized by pretty much anyone. If you cater to a state, search for that state on twitter (same thing if you only cater to a particular city). Look at their followers, and start following them. Why? Say for instance you only cater to people in Reno, Nevada. If you find a Twitter account that tweets about Reno News, their followers are most likely located within the Reno. Therefore, you’d want to follow these individuals.

A couple of other pieces of advice…

Send a direct message to all of your new followers (thank them for following you and provide a call to action such as a discount or an overview of your services).

Join WeFollow and MrTweet (Twitter directories)..great for more exposure

Include the fact that you are a local business within your profile.

The direct messages will help to turn these followers into lead (especially if you’re offering some type of incentive). It can take time to get sales from Twitter so tweet frequently, keep your followers entertained, and make sure they stick around so when they do decide to use a cleaning service they’ll think of you.

Any other questions feel free to private message me at primevisibility@ymail.com.

Jere answers:

You realize that much of the decline in stock prices is a direct consequence of the spending bill just passed and the additional spending bill that Obama said he will sign?

Unlike the Obama supporters people who place their own money on the line when they invest pay close attention to the effects of the spending bill.

For example – are you even aware of exactly where the money to pay for these spending bills will come from? Here is a clue for the clueless – it is going to come out of the same pool of money that normally goes into the stock market (the investment and capital market). The government is borrowing that money in competition with the people seeking to borrow money for business investment and in competition for the money that would otherwise go to purchase stocks.

Another thing to consider is that with Obama’s promise to repeal the Bush era tax reforms – stocks are not going to be a good long term investment in the future. Thus people who are looking to invest long-term are disinclined to invest in the stock market due to the massive tax increase they will be facing.

And finally, the promises of tax hikes on the ‘rich’ have caused them to move their mkoney out of economically productive investments and into investments that are designed more to protect them from the tax increases. Remember the term ‘tax shelter’ and how these things are only popular during periods of high taxes on the investing classes (which are also periods of low economic performance).

Jere answers:

If you’re targeting non-profit organizations, why don’t you try some phone advertising or direct contact? You could also send out mailers. You could also place an ad in the classifieds. You might talk to a news-person and ask if they’ll do a story on your business and your charitable interests.

Jere answers:

Basically, anything which may have a direct or indirect effect on the earnings of the company, can cause movements in prices of a stock. There are innumerable factors:

The event may be about the:

Company(eg. Labour problems, disputes among promoters, damage to plant and machinery ,etc),

Industry in which the company operates(eg. Economic slowdownin Western countries affecting software companies,etc.)

Movements in Sympathy: Sometimes, share prices move in sympathy with movements in the prices of prices of market leaders.

Etc., etc.

National economy(eg. Drought, floods, natural calamities, war with other country, etc.)

International economy(eg. Property bubble in US, inability of certain European countries to meet their debt obligations, War with Iraq, etc.)

National Policies(eg. Export, Import, Taxation, Expendture, Fiscal Deficit, Labour, Credit Policies, etc.)

Political Matters(eg. Political instability,lack of faith in Government, etc.)

Social Issues(Social disturbances, polarisation in society on various issues,etc.)

Natural Calamities(Floods, droughts, locust attacks on crops, earthquakes as in Japan, etc.)

The event may be of economic(payment problems of certain European Countries,for example), political(for example, war), social, natural(earth quake, floods, for example)

Jere answers:

Hi.

I know what you’re going through, I had the same problems and really wanted to leave my daytime job.

I think the best suggestion I can make is to check out the warrior forum. You’ll find many people who are making a living with their online businesses along with some really smart internet marketers.

You’re sure to find great ideas there to help you out.

Good luck!

Jere answers:

Hello Sandy,

Well I’m not in sales, but it seems to me that “personalization” is all about the person you are and what you find attractive about products. You wouldn’t go shopping in a store that didn’t appeal to you (i.e. It didn’t sell products that you aren’t interested in). So you have to assume that your potential clients are already there because they want something of yours, or at least are very interested in the general idea. Hopefully you as the salesman are also interested in the product, otherwise you’ll never be able to convince someone else that you genuinely are interested in their business. Once we’ve established that both you and your client are interested, then selling the product becomes more like making a new friend than getting someone to buy something. You’ve heard the old axiom “the best salesmen sell themselves” which I agree with. The famous evangelist D.L. Moody started as a shoe salesman and said he could get someone to buy shoes just by being himself. So if I were to try and personalize my website or store I would make it such that I were trying to capture the attention of the “me” out there. I would have to believe that people out there are just as much, if not more interested in this product as I am and then it simply becomes a
matter of exposing them to the concepts and details of the product, and answering their questions patiently/informatively. What kinds of techniques of selling really make you want to buy somethng, not just look? It’s a little different for everyone I’m sure you know. Me personally? I like the no BS way. Just give me something nice and simple…compare and contrast the features…give me all the info up front and help me sort out the pros and cons. The faster the better which is a male way of shopping. Others might care more about the social interaction that takes place, or the general style of the products. They identify with their interests more, rather than seeing the product as a tool to get them where they want to be. They want to feel the identification…pick it up, talk about it in more conversational terms, make friends with the salesman etc. That kind of technique of selling is harder to accomplish on-line because it requires more technology to be personable than it does to just expose a client to what’s available. It just depends on your tastes and what matters to you. You will attract customers who are like you, so sell to yourself.

Hope this helps a little

Jere answers:

Garage sales and the Goodwill are good places.Put a classified in your local paper or online stating that you are wanting vintage clothing,estate sales are a good place to find them also.Good luck and have fun!.

Here is a link to Goodwill Auctions Online.You will probably finds some good deals here.

Shop Goodwill
http://www.shopgoodwill.com/

Don’t forget to try your local freecycle
http://www.freecycle.org/

Jere answers:

“Sales tax” is on tangible goods, not services.

Jere answers:

Any large shipping company will do (FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.) Shop around and see who offer you a better deal. As to customs issues, you don’t need to worry about them, you just need to budget for them. Call shippers and ask them what they would charge…

Jere answers:

Gonna be hard to make any real money when people can go to fiverr.com and get awesome logos and graphic design work done for $5

Jere answers:

Yes…hostmantis.com for a web hosting, godaddy for your domain name or hostmantis. Hostmantis has a great c panel! Then use wordpress easy installation look for softaculous in c panel. WP-ecommerce for selling your artwork. Although, it will take more than a few days to setup the website. I would advertise on Craigslist, and set up the website so people can see the work that you have done. Oh and take pictures of all your work up load it to Facebook page that you create for your website. I just set up my website for e cigs at elitevapers.com, cheap!

Jere answers:

The most effective way to advertise on the Internet is
to first set up a website and publish its domain name
on major search directories such as Google.com,
Yahoo.com [at http://www.google.com/addurl/?…… And
MSN.com since 85% of Internet shoppers rely on these
search directories to provide them with goods and
services. In a sense, these search directories are a
very large Internet Yellow Pages.

Nevertheless, should your website or opening webpage
fail to contain “generic” keywords, then anyone using
such “generic” queries will not be able to discover
your website. Your domain name [URL] of your website,
in a sense, will be invisible, undiscoverable.

You may want to consider some simple algorithms which,
when observed and committed in designing of a website
with placement of various critical metatags that can
surely achieve a high search engine presence and
increase Internet traffic to your website. These
metatag strategies work well with published webpages
at Google and Yahoo.

Design: Should you create an extensive Flash-based
website, make sure to fill-in the property entries
such as the Title, Description and Keywords. Failing
to do so, leaves no hard HTML or ALT resource that can
be readily indexed by search robots. Also consider the
Internet audience and their incoming setup. For
example, if they are on analog/dialup, Flash webpages
take too long to load up and therefore analog users
will likely lose interest and discontinue entering the
Flash site. On the other hand, anyone on hi-speed DSL
lines, will welcome Flash pages which load quickly. So
before designing a pure Flash websitge, ask the simple
question, “Who’s my end user – is he on dialup or
DSL?” And if you had to choose between these two users
for maximum marketability, then select analog users
since 80% of most resident users are still analog
Internet subscribers and pure HTML designed webpages
is best for them.

A non-Flash-based website which relies on hard text,
is far easier to be indexed by search robots. Limit
the use of stylized text saved as .gifs since as a
graphic, they are not indexable by search robots.

Avoid use of frames since any number of search robots
are unable to properly classify textual material.

Placement of Metatags:

A ranking or search order does take place with Google
and Yahoo and it begins with the “Title” metag which
should consist of no more than 65 characters separated
by commas. The “Title” should describe in generic
terms, the goods and services, followed by a location
from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state.
The placement of a domain name which is not generic
within the “Title” is not appropriate, unless your
domain name is a major recognizable brand name.

The second metatag is the “Description” which is
usually 25-30 words to form a complete sentence which
best describes one’s goods and services.

And the very last category – “Keywords” are also
somewhat limited to 15-16 words which can be plural
and compound in nature. Again, avoid multiple entries
which could be mistaken as “spamdexed entries” which
is defined as the loading, and submission of
repetitive words into a particular metatag category.
“Spamdexing” when discovered on a webpage and reported
to Google’s spamreport.com can result in the
elimination of your website from their search
directory.

Good luck!

Jere answers:

Hello
This can help you to find nice hotel deals.we can check and compare current hotel prices along with reviews at “hotels combined”
——————-
Besthotelbookingguide.com
——————-
good luck!………………

Jere answers:

Search the market first to see where people spend money in our chosen topic that we like, then position our self in that market by choosing a service which satisfies the needs of the people. The next thing is to Create a one page website then build your mailings lists and Promote related products to this list.Use online sites like GoLeads to build you mailing lists.

Jere answers:

Always listen to the customer – if demos are what they ask for then that is where your marketing money should go. We opened a floral shop with very little capitol – our biggest marketing tool was to donate to every charity – your name goes on their news list and sometimes we just donated $10 – we also donated our services and product to the chinese auctions and other charity events around the county – then our name was announced to the public and our services were used creating word of mouth customers. It always cost less than traditional advertising. And members always tried to use donators services first when in need of a product.

Jere answers:

Hiring an experienced web marketer or SEO worker to get the job done for you would be the best way in my opinion.

However, if you can’t afford to pay, you could check these few suggestions :

1. Social Media Marketing : Known as the best method to gain natural traffic, these day Social Media has been heavily spammed. So, you should use unique method to advertise your site in Social media. Regularly interact with your customers are the right way to establish a good relationship with them and increase your sales.

2. Make your sites look professional : If you want to expand your sales through Internet platform, you should have a well looking and professional sites as platform. People love a secure and reliable site, and you should have it. It’s depend on your business, it’s B2B or retail? Do you have shopping carts inserted so people can buy it directly? All of them needed a well managed site.

Link below has several good points about how to gain traffic into your online business sites :

http://www.izzonet.com/streetwise-ecommerce/ecommerce-marketing-tools

Jere answers:

At a minimum you need to do the following:

1 – To set up your business you need to register the business in your state under a Corporation (C or S) or LLC, get a EIN (employer identification number) and open a business checking account

2 – To protect your IP you need to create a NDA for each contractor. But beware, unless you have the finances to legally go after a breach of the NDA, it is worthless outside of making someone think that you will pursue a breach. You should put one in place but it can be costly to pursue if needed. I recommend if possible that you piecemeal the work so that no contractor gets enough to understand the full scope and secret sauce of the project.

Hope this helps.

Jere answers:

Prove the critics wrong by giving out great service to your customers. It may or may not be your competitors’ doing so don’t assume. If they are unethical in dealing with their business, it’s going to surface eventually. If you can publicly reply to the critics online, ask them to come to your shop again personally so you can service them better. That way, other readers can see how genuine you are. Just keep in mind that your product is not your bakery, it’s you. When you are able to connect with people, that’s how you will sell 🙂 Good luck!

Jere answers:

Your parents could be charged with child abandonment if the authorities discovered your plan. Also, if you are being home schooled, or in your case, Internet schooled, don’t your parents have to submit periodic reports and proof of achievement to your local school authorities? The home school statutes differ from state to state, so that may not be the case where you reside.

Jere answers:

Job fairs have representatives from the company that can meet you in person. Online your just another submission while at the job fair you were so and so with the nice suit. Our business prefers candidates from a job fair over online submissions as we are able to speak to the applicants personally and put a face to the application.

Businesses prefer dress clothes on a matter of professionalism. Some people cannot dress up or dress up properly leaving an employer to wonder if you’re even qualified. You could be applying for an entry level position and end up in a management position so every interview needs to be conducted as if you were applying for a very qualified position. Also first impressions are lasting ones, in all the interviews I have done, I have never considered someone that shows up in jeans and a shirt. It shows a lack of respect and consideration the candidate has. In addition, the next interviewee who shows up dressed up shows that much mor professionalism than the last person.

The business world is driven by success and sales. The academic world is driven by discipline. If you have enough discipline to maintain your grades you will do well in school. However, businesses are focused on sales and staying above rather than consistent performance.

Jere answers:

There are millions of websites that talk about money making opportunities. I have spent 6 years researching these sites. Majority of these are rip offs. The best approach is to create your own yahoo group which would invite like minded people from all across the world. Once you have 15 to 20 serious people like you, the next thing to do is to create a website that promotes the kind of money making opportunity you are interested in. With these 15 to 20 people in your group you can start to work towards a financially rewarding online affiliate business. Due to space constraints I cannot elaborate this approach but anyone really keen to look into this can get in touch!

Jere answers:

There are many businesses you could start for under $1000. You could start a home-based business, which may be your best choice if you find one with a product or service that you believe in, a simple-to-use system and a documented training program. If that is something you are considering, research the companies and find one with products that are necessity-based or some you believe in and it could be the best decision you ever made. Personally, I believe in businesses that have already been figured out and all you have to do is step in, get trained and make it happen. Training is key because in order for things to change, you have to change.

Best wishes

Jere answers:

You do NOT send 1099-Misc forms. You do NOT send 1042-S forms.

You take a long look at form W-8BEN (which is for foreigners physically working in the US) and borrow the language of the Under penalties of perjury statement. Add this to a document you ask your contractors to sing, attesting that the work was done outside the US and that they are neither US citizens nor US resident aliens. Then put the form with your records for paying them. This will show you used due diligence in determining that no forms were required to be sent to the IRS.

Jere answers:

Easy search
Accurate information – eg vintage, blend component abv
Accurate pricing – clearly indicated cost of shipping
A page giving real address/phone number/ contact name
Suggest listing on www.wine-searcher.com
Info on minimum order size, possible to mix case.
Returns policy

No flash introduction, fast loading site minimal eye candy, remember not everyone on broadband.
Ability to download a text file of your winelist to study offline

Jere answers:

Scottrade.
NO account maintenance, service, or inactivity fees.
$7.00 online trading commission for stock over $1.00 a share.
Tutorial and webcast available to customers.
Excellent trading platforms (very user friendly).
Excellent customer service (398 Branch offices nationwide).
$500.00 minimum to open an account.

If you do end up opening it with Scottrade, use this referral code: EJVR8926
You and I can get 3 FREE trades.

Jere answers:

Find a broker and call by phone , other wise as said above go forex

Jere answers:

I run 5 websites (none in retail though). I can say that this is a hard question to answer. Clearly, overstock.com will cost more to run than joesglass.com. I personally use bluehost.com for hosting, so my monthly expense is under $10 for all 5 sites (non-retail though…). I see anywhere from 8k to 20k visitors monthly with no speed issues. You should probably look into some e-commerece software solutions like this:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/

It looks like their starter package is about $40/month, and its scalable in case your business grows unexpectedly.

Jere answers:

I am sharing a responsible in making a dynamic design and site management for you. This will be a good step for you business. I hope this will help. They can have the best and the design you want to for your hotel website. Good Luck.

Jere answers:

One of the easiest ways to make money online is affiliate marketing selling other peoples products…The Wealthy Affiliate University teaches and provides you with everything you will ever need to affiliate market. Http://tinyurl.com/cuw9an

Surveys are also a good place to start. I joined this company as it offers both online and local offline surveys targeted to your area http://tinyurl.com/bhts8l

One of this weeks greatest finds for me this week is a new community that offers free websites and free hosting with a platform that so easy to use that you don’t even need any web design skills to have a site up in minutes. Http://tinyurl.com/c5z96w They are also monetized so you can start earning money online immediately. See my site example here http://www.baddebtcreditrepair.com

There are so many affiliate programs and so much information available on the internet that affiliate marketing can be overwhelming initially. This is one of the reasons The Wealthy Affiliate University is so great..they give you an 8 week action plan to follow and a forum that will answer just about any question you could ever have..

Jere answers:

You should try using pharaohcart.com its not free but very affordable. Ecommerce sites can be tricky to set up. And when you use free carts it takes much skill.

Pharaohcart.com has excellent support team and proffesional web designers that will set up your cart ssl certificate and help you get set up with a merchant account. All free of charge. Its best to let the proffesionals handle it so you get a proffesional store open. You don’t want a half done site becouse your customers will take notice.

There shopping cart is very easy to use and is web based inside your browser. You can customize you entire store add products, email, seo and more all through there powerful control panel.

Its very affordable. They charge on a one time set up fee. They allow you to choose from thousands of templates. They will customize it for you add your logos graphics, special featuers ect at no charge!

You can check out a sample store on there site to take a look at all of its powerful featues.

I hope this helps. I have like 7 stores hosted with them and i would use another service! Perfect A+++++

Jere answers:

EMail uses a different MIME type. If you want them to see the actual coded page, zip it and send as an attachment. If you want to send it like an eMail newsletter, then you need to learn how to code eMail newsletters:

HTML EMail:

G-Lock EasyMail: http://www.glockeasymail.com/

How to Code HTML Email Newsletters: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/code-html-email-newsletters

How to Create and Send HTML Email: http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue293.htm

Email Marketing Articles and Guides: http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/stupid-html-email-design-mistakes/

How to Create Great HTML Emails with CSS: http://www.webreference.com/programming/css_html/

30 Free HTML email templates: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/

How do you typically create HTML email?: http://webdesign.about.com/b/2008/10/02/poll-how-do-you-typically-create-html-email.htm

Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=HTML+Email+software&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email: http://www.email-standards.org/

Better if you uploaded it to a web site and sent the URL to it.

Ron

Jere answers:

HTML EMail:

G-Lock EasyMail: http://www.glockeasymail.com/

How to Code HTML Email Newsletters: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/code-html-email-newsletters

How to Create and Send HTML Email: http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue293.htm

Email Marketing Articles and Guides: http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/stupid-html-email-design-mistakes/

How to Create and Send HTML Email: http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue293.htm

How to Create Great HTML Emails with CSS: http://www.webreference.com/programming/css_html/

30 Free HTML email templates: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/

How do you typically create HTML email?: http://webdesign.about.com/b/2008/10/02/poll-how-do-you-typically-create-html-email.htm

Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=HTML+Email+software&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Ron

Jere answers:

The best place to start is Jeff Herring ‘The Article Guy’ he has many useful webinars and templates that will get you up and running. Also check him out on YouTube.

Check out writing directories such as Ezine Articles

Also sign up with Clickbank, they market ebooks and ereports that you can sell (become and affliliate) on behalf of others or create your own products for others to sell for you.

Jere answers:

Graphic designers typically work in the marketing department for larger companies or, more specifically, in advertising or marketing firms. It’s their job to maintain the companies’ brand (i.e. Logo, slogan, color scheme, powerpoint template, email marketing template) and can help design ads or any other visual elements that a marketing group might require.

Jere answers:

Here’s how you get into acting:
The first thing you need is experience. You should start small and work on building a resume to submit to potential agencies (when the time comes) Audition for school plays and join the drama club. You should also try out for local community theatre shows. Take as many acting classes as possible. Read some books on acting (those by Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Kristen Linklater and Jack Poggi are great).

If you feel you are ready, look up auditions on http://www.actorsaccess.com/index.cfm?fl…
http://www.backstage.com/bso/index.jsp
http://actinginfo.blogspot.com/
All three websites are reputable, legitimate and free. You generally need a head shot and resume (this website has great information on creating a resume http://www.bestsampleresume.com/acting-r… When you have enough experience you should begin to look for an agent. Look up agents on the SAG website.

Jere answers:

Http://www.markjasongallery.com/artwork/detail/artwork/ghost-flower-2
http://ferenc.biz/2211-make-up-artists-future-goals-life-motto-wisdom.html

Scent Of Flower: Creative Art Made From Flowers

http://blog.clareflorist.co.uk/flowers/2011/09/flower-sculptures.html
http://www.show.me.uk/site/news/STO1167.html

Sorry if these links aren’t very helpful, good luck with your project though

Jere answers:

Sorry-
you wont get anywhere here,
did you listen to clintons speach a few weeks back.
He was saying the problem is the ideology of the administration. It’s like a 10 year old that’s got there heart set on playing xbox even though it’s after bed time. You just can’t convince them of anything else despite how much logical evidence you bring fourth. They leave no room for debate, it’s there way or the highway, stay the course, your with them or against them. There is no compromise. Even though protesting in my opinion is futile, it is important when you consider how history will judge us ( if you crae) i mean what’s your opion on of the citzens of nazi germany in the 30’s and 40’s.
And it’s never too late.
In my opinion logical america needs to give up on the corupted democratic party. If we want real change we have to vote in somebody who will bring it. Democrats don’t want change, they want power.
And don’t back down because your right.
* the first tower to be hit was the second to fall
* the hole left in the pentagon wouldn’t fit the wing span of a commercial jet. Also where’s the debris.
* if the jet fuel leaked down the elevator shafts of the twin towers. Then what caused that giant fire ball that exploded out side the
* if the building got so hot as to mealt steel how did fire fighters make it up to the floor were plane had impacted.
Seconds before the buildings fell a firefighter was at the impacted floor asseing the situation and establishing a way to fight the fire.
* also cell phone’s don’t work at high altitudes. A guy called his grand mother when she answered the phone he told his grandma his first and last name. They really don’t work that high up, in 2004 they finally invented a machine that bounced the cell phone waves down to earth. So how could those passengers make those final calls from cell phones?

Jere answers:

In your pants:) here in Galway have Charcoal Grill which is run by Turkish & it is very tasty..http://www.yelp.ie/biz/charcoal-grill-galway-2 I like the Chicken Shish as soo tasty with all the sauces, but the ones I used to get in London were better but this food is good but best to go in there to eat rather than ordering by phone & having it delivered..good value for money..If you live in Dublin am guessing there are loads of turkish places that serve good food.

Jere answers:

If your still looking for the right home-based business “My Power Mall” is totally different! It’s FREE, you don’t have to sell anything, there is no qualifying for income, and all your tools are free. Check here: www.mypowermall.com/biz/home/10760

Jere answers:

If you are just starting out and don’t have a budget to get a domain name and hosting then I would suggest doing a combination of building websites on places like wordpress.com and also submitting relevant articles on places like ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, and more. This should be a good start to help you learn more about internet marketing as it takes awhile to get used to all of the tips and tricks involved to make a large profit. I have personally known people who are making $100+ a day without having their own website which isn’t huge money but to many it is a great extra income.

Jere answers:

I have a blog myself and the first thing you need is patience. All the top Internet Marketers now promote good content and niche keywords as the secret to building traffic. Unless you are lucky this takes a lot of time to achieve.

Advertising it is good but it does cost money.

Jere answers:

Off course you can. Some people boast about how much they are making off blogs but I think you have to know what you are doing. It’s not as simple as it sounds though. One site you might want to check out is http://www.makemoneywithblogsinfo.com

It might not make you rich but at least you can see for yourself that it is possible.

Jere answers:

There are lot of ways to earn money from internet .These depends upon your working skills .If you can market better than all of these Affiliate Marketing.Internet Marketing,Email Marketing are for you .If you have a writing potential then start a blog or become freelance writer.
Best Of Luck

Jere answers:

What I do is to use WordPress blog and all benefits that offer (plug ins) to optimise it. What I do: First I find keyword that is related to my product but have 2000-8000 global monthly search and no more than 15.000 competitive web page. When I find that keyword I take a blog name what must include that keyword and set up a blog using some plug-ins. Finishing that I do social bookmarks to get couple of backlinks and when my blog get indexed by google I ad final post with my affiliate link. In a few days blog will arrive in first page on google and will start to bring me free traffic.
If you find it interesting you can find more info on this web:
http://www.affiliatebuz.com
and it works great with CB products…

Jere answers:

If you plan to incorporate then you need to register with the federal,state and city government. If you plan to run the business as a sole proprietor then all you need is a business license from your local city government. Some cities do not require you to get a business license until the business makes $3,000 to $4,000 so see what your local government requires for an e-commerce business.

Steps for getting started:
First and foremost write up a business plan.
1. Forming the business either through incorporating or as a sole proprietor. If you plan to incorporate then you need to get with your states Secretary of State to do this.
2. Find your SIC and NAICS code you will need either one or both for your business formation with the government entities.
3. Getting an EIN if required
4. Setting up a Franchise and Excise Tax and Sales and Use Tax account with the Dept of Revenue in the state you are in. You need to determine if you need one or both of these accounts. Just call the Dept of Revenue in your state and they are usually pretty helpful in answering all your questions.
5. Set up a business bank account or bank account with a DBA attached to it if you plan to do the business as a sole proprietor if you incorporate then a business bank account is what you need.
6. Set up a merchant and or paypal account. The merchant account you can set up through your bank and this allows you to take all major credit cards.
7. Build a website and get a domain name and hosting. You can either build your own website or have one built for you, some start out with a blog because it’s free and you can make it look like a standard website so take a look at this option and see if it will work for you. Just keep in mind if you use a blog you need relevant content in the body of the blog if it’s just full of product links then you will eventually get shut down. As far as building your own you can either buy software or use the online website builders. Using the software allows you to create your site how you want it just make sure the hosting provider you use will support the software, with the online website builders you will be limited to their templates and I believe you have to use their hosting but you can buy your domain name from anywhere and just direct to their server.
Research SEO for your website, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and you can read about this at any article directory. Once in the directory put in a search for what you are wanting to read about and you should get some articles to read up on. If your search comes up empty or not what you are looking for just reword the search until you do. The info is there you just need to use the right phrasing. If you are on a tight budget you may also look into free ways to market your site.
8. Get inventory.
9. Figure out how you plan to ship product. This all comes down to how you plan to handle inventory. Some people have their own and some get involved with companies that have the product and you sell it and they drop ship the product for you. This saves on you having to carry the product yourself and having unsold inventory in your possession. If you plan to do affiliate marketing then you need to sign up to the affiliate programs and get your code specific links to post on your site.
10. Marketing your website. Just because you publish a website doesn’t mean it’s visible to the search engines and the public at large so you need to submit the site to the 3 top search engines at the least and start marketing the site.

This is a basic order and some of these may overlap each other during the process but I hope this helps out. I’ve been through the routine and had to figure it all out myself. Just ask a lot of questions with the people you are dealing with to get things in order.

Jere answers:

Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Identify your product or service. It is necessary to know the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code and the Federal Supply Classification (FSC) code for your product or service.
NAICS codes: http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/naics.htmlFSC codes: http://fpdcapp.gsa.gov/pls/fpdsweb/PscWiz

Step 2. Check with the Small Business Administration (SBA) to determine that your business falls within the established table of small business size standards based on NAICS. Http://www.sba.gov

Step 3: Obtain a DUNS Number from Dunn & Bradstreet. Http://www.dnb.com

Step 4: Register in the Centralized Contractor Registration (CCR) System. Http://www.ccr.gov

Step 5: Determine if your firm qualifies for 8(a), SDB or HUBZone certification. These certifications are detailed at http://www.sba.gov

Step 6: Register in Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA). Http://orca.bpn.gov

Step 7: Begin to search for current federal government procurement opportunities. Http://www.fedbizopps.gov

Step 8: Familiarize yourself with both the federal Civilian and Department of Defense (DoD) contracting legal procedures. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) can be found at http://www.arnet.gov/far/. The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) are located at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/dfars/index.htm.

Step 9: Investigate if getting on the GSA Schedule is right for you http://www.gsa.gov

Step 10: Seek additional assistance, as needed, in the federal civilian and/or DoD marketplaces. Http://www.dla.mil/db/procurem.htm

Step 11: Familiarize yourself with the budget forecasts for your targeted agencies. Http://www.firstgov.gov

Step 12: Explore subcontracting opportunities from primary contractors

Step 13: Investigate government programs. There are several SBA programs that may be of interest to you, such as the 8(a) Business Development Mentor-Protege Program, the Small Business Innovation Research Program and Small Business Technology Transfer Research Program and the Technology Resources Network. Www.sba.gov

Step 14: Market your firm to the right contacts. Identify your prospective government customers, research their requirements, and familiarize yourself with procurement regulations and strategies require determination, direction, discipline and resources.

Jere answers:

There is NO way to ever send money by Western Union or moneygram and be protected. If a supplier doesn’t accept credit cards, they are NOT a someone you want to do business with. The ONLY way to have any kind of protection is to use a credit card. Period.

All anyone needs to send money by Western Union or moneygram is:
1) A first and last name to use on the form as the sender’s name
2) A first and last name to use on the form as the receiver’s name
3) Money

All anyone needs to pick up the cash is:
1) The first and last name used on the form as the sender’s name.
2) The first and last name used on the form as the receiver’s name
3) The eight or ten digit money transfer control number (MTCN#)
4) The test question and answer

And, all too frequently, only one or 2 of above listed requirements are actually needed to pick up the cash and disappear.

That is it, no ID required.

If you are:

1) sending money as part of a work-at-home job
2) buying from a website
3) buying a pet or car/truck/trailer/motorhome/caravan
4) helping an online boy/girlfriend
5) paying taxes/fees on a loan/lottery/draw/government grant
6) paying visa/bank/airline/travel fees
7) paying deposit/rent for an apartment/house
8) paying banker/barrister/lawyer/court fees
9) paying a transportation/courier/shipping company
10) receiving/forwarding money onto someone or some company

Then you are being scammed.

Just keep in mind that Western Union and moneygram are unsafe and unsecure ways to send money.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off the cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country the money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

If you google “Western Union scam”, “fraud moneygram scammer” or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims who lost money via Western Union and moneygram.

Jere answers:

I think below given steps help you.

1. Write a basic business plan, outlining your business structure, what services you will offer, your fee structure and payment/accounting methods, and who your target market is (for example, businesses, individuals or nonprofits).
2. Consult with a professional Web developer to begin designing ideas for your website, such as how you want the site to look and what features and functions it will have for you as the business owner and for your customers. If you are well-versed in Web design, you may wish to build your own site. Since your business will be conducted online, it is important to have a professional-looking and fully operational website.
3. Generate two or three different names for your business, and begin researching potential domain names for your website. Register your chosen domain name to reserve it. If you have chosen a name similar to another company that does bookkeeping, seek the advice of an attorney knowledgeable in trademarks before registering. This will avoid future problems with the business name you have chosen.
4. Research Web-hosting services to determine which provider offers the functionality, bandwidth and support you will need to maintain your bookkeeping business for the best price. Consult with your Web developer about Web hosts he recommends or the features you need, especially security features if you intend to store your clients’ bookkeeping accounts online. Once you’ve chosen a Web host, your developer should be able to get your site up and running.
5. Obtain the appropriate business license from your local, county or state government. Although your bookkeeping business will be conducted primarily online, you must work somewhere (such as a home office), and most localities require even home-based businesses to have a business license. Depending on your local regulations, you may also need an individual professional license to perform bookkeeping or accounting services. Additionally, if your business is not operating as a sole proprietorship, you must apply to the Internal Revenue Service for a federal employer identification number for tax purposes.
6. Begin marketing your business by placing ads online, creating social media accounts for your business (Facebook, Twitter) or writing a blog related to bookkeeping. Additionally, you should network in traditional ways as well by attending professional conferences and seeking clients in your area.

Jere answers:

If you plan to incorporate then yes you need to register with the federal,state and city government. If you plan to run the business as a sole proprietor then all you need is a business license from your local city government.

Steps for getting started:
First and foremost write up a business plan
1. Forming the business either through incorporating or as a sole proprietor. If you plan to incorporate then you need to get with your states Secretary of State to do this.
2. Find your SIC and NAICS code you will need either one or both for your business formation with the government entities.
3. Getting an EIN if required
4. Setting up a Franchise and Excise Tax and Sales and Use Tax account with the Dept of Revenue in the state you are in. You need to determine if you need one or both of these accounts. Just call the Dept of Revenue in your state and they are usually pretty helpful in answering all your questions.
5. Set up a business bank account or bank account with a DBA attached to it.
6. Set up a merchant and or paypal account.
7. Build a website and get a domain name and hosting.
8. Get inventory.
9. Figure out how you plan to ship product. This all comes down to how you plan to handle inventory. Some people have their own and some get involved with companies that have the product and you sell it and they drop ship the product for you. This saves on you having to carry the product yourself and having unsold inventory in your possession.
10. Marketing your website. Just because you publish a website doesn’t mean it’s visible to the search engines and the public at large so you need to submit the site to the 3 top search engines at the least and start marketing the site.

This is a basic order and some of these may overlap each other during the process but I hope this helps out. I’ve been through the routine and had to figure it all out myself. Just ask a lot of questions with the people you are dealing with to get things in order.

Jere answers:

Interdependence means that different countries are voluntarily dependent on one another in their own individual economic ineterest of producing goods and services at which they have the most competiotive advantage and import those that are produced cheaper elsewhere, voluantarily invest across the borders on the basis of same treatment as if they are investing in their own countries and trherefore working virtually as an integrated one economy and all countries firms compete with each other on a level playing field basis so that the consumrs of all countries get access to the cheapest and best quality products, rather than being exploited by domestic monopolies or relative inefficiencies of certain lines of product manufacturing or businesss. In view of these globalisation is measured in terms of dependence of a country on other countries and other countries dependence on this country for mutual economic gain.. These econiomic interdependence or economic integration centre around the four main economic flows that characterize globalization:
(a) Goods and services, e.g. Exports plus imports as a proportion of national income or per capita of population : higher the percentage higher is the intensity of globalisation of the country because its shows higher interdependence between this country and other countries ( of course, both exports and imports must be high, only imports will not do)
(b) Labour/people, e.g. Net migration rates; inward or outward migration flows, weighted by population – higher the incidence of migration, preferably both ways, higher is the interdependence between this country and other countries and greater is the extent of globalisation.
(c) Capital, e.g. Inward or outward direct investment as a proportion of national income or per head of population – the higher is the flow of one country’s citizens’ investment in other countries and vice a versa, the higher is the interdependence among countries in terms their common interest in the growth and development of all countries, and therfore higher isthe higher is the extent of globalisation.
(d) Technology, e.g. International research & development flows; proportion of populations (and rates of change thereof) using particular inventions (especially ‘factor-neutral’ technological advances such as the telephone, motorcar, broadband) – the more different countries co-operate and collaborate on technological progress and take each other’s help on technology adaptation, the greater is the interdependence among them and greater the extent of globalisation to get more ideas see below:
Globalisation (n) is the “process enabling financial and investment markets to operate internationally, largely as a result of deregulation and improved communications” (Collins) or – from the US – to “make worldwide in scope or application” (Webster). The financial markets, however, are where the story begins.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the business model termed the “globalised” financial market came to be seen as an entity that could have more than just an economic impact on the parts of the world it touched.

Globalisation came to be seen as more than simply a way of doing business, or running financial markets – it became a process. From then on the word took on a life of its own. Centuries earlier, in a similar manner, the techniques of industrial manufacturing led to the changes associated with the process of industrialisation, as former country dwellers migrated to the cramped but booming industrial cities to tend the new machines.

So how does the globalised market work? It is modern communications that make it possible; for the British service sector to deal with its customers through a call centre in India, or for a sportswear manufacturer to design its products in Europe, make them in south-east Asia and sell them in north America.

Jere answers:

Role of the niche market in today’s economy- -how does it impact the economy: See detailed notes below. It enhances competition, serves special category of customers, enhances value addition, creates employment, nourishes creativity.
-what are some trends in retailing that focus on niche markets? See what happens online niche marketing below.
-is there such thing as a niche marketer? Yes, see definition within the notes below.
A niche market also known as a target market is a focused, targetable portion (subset) of a market sector. By definition, then, a business that focuses on a niche market is addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. A niche market may be thought of as a narrowly defined group of potential customers.
A distinct niche market usually evolves out of a market niche, where potential demand is not met by any supply. Such ventures are profitable because of disinterest on the part of large businesses and/or lack of awareness on the part of other small companies. The key to capitalizing on a niche market is to find or develop a market niche that has customers who are accessible, that is growing fast enough, and that is not owned by one established vendor already.
Niche marketing is the process of finding and serving profitable market segments and designing custom-made products or services for them. For big companies those market segments are often too small in order to serve them profitably as they often lack economies of scale. Niche marketers are often reliant on the loyalty business model to maintain a profitable volume of sales. This also means theres a gap in the market. An often used technique for affiliate marketers. By seeking out smaller segments of larger markets, a website can be developed and promoted quickly to uniquely serve a targeted and usually loyal customer base, giving the affiliate a small but regular income stream. This technique is then repeated across several other niche websites until a desired income level is achieved.
Market niches are small highly-focused market segments. They allow even smaller businesses to be major market-dominant players in areas that can be relatively free of massive competitive struggle.
Geographic focus, demographic profiling, alternative distribution channels, modifications in products or services, variable pricing, new technologies — all these are possible ways of doing niche marketing: a highly concentrated form of target marketing that allows companies to zoom in on markets that may be small but whose profit potential may be large.
Niches can sometimes grown to tremendous size. A (former) head of IBM once went on record as saying that the market for personal computer ownership in the United States probably would never amount to more than five people. Bill Gates did not agree, and thought this niche market was worth developing. The rest is history.
There are two things to remember about niche markets and niche marketing. As with regular markets, the best way to spot them, understand them, and address them is through market research and market segmentation. Niche markets, like all markets, are driven by consumer wants and needs. The more closely one understands the characteristic drives and purchasing patterns of any market, niche or otherwise, the more likely success is to follow. The second thing is that niche markets don’t require a company’s total focus. A large company can address both a large market and a niche market at the same time — indeed, the smaller size and tighter focus of a niche market can make it the ideal target for experimental or developmental testing of products or services.
Most companies, whether big or small, direct their marketing to select niche audiences. Even the country’s largest manufacturers target carefully pinpointed market segments to maximize the effectiveness of their programs and often tackle different niches for each product group. Hewlett-Packard, for example, markets all-in-one machines that print, fax and scan to segments of the home office market, while targeting larger businesses for higher-priced, single-function units.
Niche marketing can be extremely cost-effective. For instance, imagine you offer a product or service that’s just right for a select demographic or ethnic group in your area, such as Hispanics or Asians. You could advertise on ethnic radio stations, which have considerably lower rates than stations that program for broader audiences. So your marketing budget would go a lot further, allowing you to advertise with greater frequency or to use a more comprehensive media mix.
Taking on a new niche can be a low-risk way to grow your business, as long as you keep in mind several important rules:
1. Meet their unique needs. The benefits you promise must have special appeal to the market niche. What can you provide that’s new and compelling? Identify the unique needs of your potential audience, and look for ways to tailor your product or service to meet them. Start by considering all the product or service variations you might offer. When it comes to marketing soap, for example, not much has changed over the years. But suppose you were a soap maker and you invented a new brand to gently remove chlorine from swimmers’ hair. You’d have something uniquely compelling to offer a niche market–from members of your neighborhood pool to the Olympic swim team.
2. Say the right thing. When approaching a new market niche, it’s imperative to speak their language. In other words, you should understand the market’s “hot buttons” and be prepared to communicate with the target group as an understanding member–not an outsider. In addition to launching a unique campaign for the new niche, you may need to alter other, more basic elements, such as your company slogan if it translates poorly to another language, for example. In instances where taking on a new niche market is not impacted by a change in language or customs, it’s still vital to understand its members’ key issues and how they prefer to communicate with companies like yours. For example, suppose a business that markets leather goods primarily to men through a Web site decides to target working women. Like men, working women appreciate the convenience of shopping on the Web, but they expect more content so that they can comprehensively evaluate the products and the company behind them. To successfully increase sales from the new niche, the Web marketer would need to change the way it communicates with them by expanding its site along with revising its marketing message.
3. Always test-market. Before moving ahead, assess the direct competitors you’ll find in the new market niche and determine how you will position against them. For an overview, it’s best to conduct a competitive analysis by reviewing competitors’ ads, brochures and Web sites, looking for their key selling points, along with pricing, delivery and other service characteristics.
But what if there is no existing competition? Believe it or not, this isn’t always a good sign. True, it may mean that other companies haven’t found the key to providing a product or service this niche will want to buy. However, it’s also possible that many companies have tried and failed to penetrate this group. Always test-market carefully to gauge the market’s receptiveness to your product or service and message. And move cautiously to keep your risks manageable.
How does the small business person compete with the Wal-Marts of this world. You don’t have the capital to use the department-store approach. The key for small businesses is to master the art of niche marketing.

1. Profile Your Customers
First, profile who your customers are likely to be. Take an hour or two with a friend or business associate or spouse and describe in detail the characteristics they are likely to possess.
2. Where Do They Congregate?
Next, decide where those kinds of people are likely to congregate on the Internet. If you haven’t discovered Internet mailing lists and news groups, there’s no time like the present. You’ll find many of your customers congregated into neat niches right here.
Both mailing lists and news groups are on-line discussion groups. Here’s the difference between them:

Mailing List. The discussion group’s comments all land in your e-mail box either in single messages or, if you’re not a glutton for punishment, in a daily digest form. Mailing lists tend to involve more serious discussion.

News Group. This type of discussion group is found residing on your Internet Service Provider’s computer (much like AOL and CompuServe forums). You look at the comments others have made and add your own. Caution: a lot of fluff and stupidity here. But who says your potential customers have to be highly intelligent?
Mailing lists and news groups are highly targeted since they focus on very specific topics. In each discussion group you may find as many as 1,000 to 10,000 regular readers with a special interest in that topic. There are discussion groups on marketing, doll collecting, auto racing, Celtic civilization, management development, cycling in the Himalayas. You name it: it’s probably there somewhere. And if you don’t find one you like, you can start your own.
3. Communicate Your Message Where They Congregate
Let’s say you want to sell Civil War books (or are they “War-between-the-States books” in the South). I’d find a mailing list made up of Civil War reenactors and find some way to participate.
You don’t come on strong: COME BUY MY BOOKS. You’ll be hooted down (flamed) by half the members. You wait for your moment. Your great-great uncle was wounded in the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia. When the discussion turns to Sherman’s March to the Sea, you tell what you found in Uncle John’s old letters you discovered among your grandmother’s papers. At the end of your e-mail message, however, you’ll include your e-mail “signature” which gives a mini-ad for your business.

Jere answers:

You ask for a simple answer to a very complex question, but I’ll do my best without writing a book.

Communists form communes. There no one owns any private property. The commune owns all the property and it is “shared” in some manner. Since the early 20th century Marxism has been the most common large scale communist structure. Marxism has never been indefinitely successful because it is a nice dream that doesn’t work in the real world. Citizens give up trying as others don’t contribute as much as they do, but still get the same returns: and the leaders take first and best of everything for their families and friends, since they control everything, and short the other citizens. I like to say communism works only with robots, but I admit my favored libertarianism (true-liberalism) works well only with angels.

Socialists have a less radical form than the communists (communism is just a very radical form of socialism). There, in its formal version, the “state” doesn’t own everything (as in Marxism), but it does own — or at least control — all means of production. Most of the Euro-cultures and others, including the US, have a socialist society in varying degrees. Today’s neo-Marxists lie about that because it’s nowhere near enough socialism for them. Many also lie that they are “liberals” when liberalism is the polar opposite of their beliefs (see definitions below).

Republicans advocate a “representative” form of government where citizens are represented in some manner within government. The Republican Party of the US — which had some socialist principles under it’s “progressive” wing at turn into the 20th century — is today an odd mix of true-liberals and conservatives (see below), and very moderate national socialists.

Democrats advocate government control by the citizens themselves, sometimes by direct vote from all citizens. The US is a constitutional democratic-republic. It’s structure was forged by the original Democratic Party, then named Democratic-Republican Party (today’s Republican Party wasn’t formed until the 1840’s). The Democratic-Republican Party opposed The Federalist Party then, which went defunct in the early 19th century. The conservative (see below) Federalist Party favored commercial and financial interests and the Democratic-Republican Party was favored by farmers and tradesmen. That party had been truly liberal (see below) until socialist academics and union organizers gained a lot of control early in the 20th century.

I can easily turn this into a book for you but I’ll stop here before I do. You can E-mail me from my profile if you have more questions.

Liberalism advocates: individual freedom, weak government, and free markets. Conservatism advocates: moral responsibility, strong government, and protected markets. Socialism advocates: social responsibility, omnipotent government, and controlled markets.

Jere answers:

There’s no way unless you happen to have a couple billion dollars that you’d like to spend developing computer programs and supercomputers.

There are way too many black-box funds that are already doing this. They have enough capital to make minor price discrepancies very profitable. By definition, a “small” investor simply doesn’t have those resources.

Jere answers:

Corporate communications is the process of facilitating information and knowledge exchanges with internal and key external groups and individuals that have a direct relationship with an enterprise. It is concerned with internal communications management from the standpoint of sharing knowledge and decisions from the enterprise with employees, suppliers, investors and partners. Examples include:

Enterprises use annual reports as corporate communications tools to convey information related to results, processes and relationships of the enterprise. Typically, these communications occur on a yearly basis.
Corporations use electronic and print newsletters to share corporate diversity hiring practices and information on new hires.
Enterprises use corporate Intranets to create a corporate communication platforms to formalize processes around announcing requests to supplies to submit RFPs.
In corporate communications the object of communications work is company/enterprise itself as opposed to marketing communications where the object of communications is product/produce or service provided by the company/enterprise. The aim of corporate communications is building company’s reputation among its stakeholders (as opposed to brand building in marketing communications).

Corporate communications may include:

Analyst relations
Internal communications
Investor relations;
Corporate governance (communications aspects of corporate governance);
Issue management;
Change management (communications aspects of growth management, mergers and acquisitions etc.);
Corporate social responsibility;
Litigation (communications on/around litigation);
Crisis communications etc.

Jere answers:

Yes. If you have a regionally accredited degree, then it will be considered valid.

Jere answers:

Jobs resources and information at jobstret.info.
Http://jobstret.info/

Jere answers:

No its a private school

Jere answers:

Franklin University got regional accreditation just last year. Full Sail University does not have regional accreditation. Basically, Full Sail is a trade school pretending to be a university.

Neither school has Business School programmatic accreditation — not AACSB nor the two other (lesser) accreditors.

Franklin University is new to me, so I read up on the faculty bios. Very unimpressive bunch. Most of the doctorates are from 3rd rate schools or worse. Many of the doctorates at EdD, which provokes snickers among real PhDs.

Both of these schools are bottom feeders. You should look elsewhere.

Jere answers:

As a civil engineer, I can honestly say that no company I know of would even consider looking at a candidate with an online civil engineering degree. In fact, I don’t think that such degrees even exist! Most – no, all companies are interested in engineering candidates with degrees from ABET accredited engineering programs, and there’s no way that ABET would accredit an on-line program. If you do come across some place that is advertising an accredited on-line civil engineering degree, treat it like “Bob’s Backyard College of Engineering” and run away because it’s a scam.

If you’re interested in getting a civil engineering degree, you’ll probably have to do it the old-fashioned way. But no fear!! – I studied with several folks who were working their ways through school and were a little older, and they all did great! The one advantage that engineering progams in general seem to have is lots of scholarships. Even if you start empty-handed in most civil engineering programs, if you keep high grades and seek to get involved a little bit extracurricularly, you shouldn’t have a problem getting scholarships.